It was my custom, as the hours dragged on, to repeat the question, 'When will the carts come in ?' and repeat it again and again until at last those sounds arose in the street that I have heard once more this morning.

The road before our house is a great thoroughfare for early carts.

I know not, and I never have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they go.

But I know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they stream continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking of wheels and the same clink of horses' feet.

It was not for nothing that they made the burthen of my wishes all night through.