The furious nor'-wester had blown every fleck of cloud below the horizon, and dried the air until it was as light as ether.

The "s'utherly buster," on the other hand, had cooled and refreshed everything in the most delicious way, and a perfect day had come at last.

What words can describe the pleasure it is to inhale such an atmosphere?
One feels as if old age or sickness or even sorrow, could hardly exist beneath such a spotless vault of blue as stretched out above our happy heads.

I have often been told that this feeling of intense pleasure on a fine day, which is peculiar to New Zealand, is really a very low form of animal enjoyment.
It may be so, but I only know that I never stood in the verandah early in the morning of such a day as I am trying to sketch in pen and ink now, without feeling the highest spiritual joy, the deepest thankfulness to the loving Father who had made His beautiful world so fair, and who would fain lead us through its paths of pleasantness to a still more glorious, home, which will be free from the shadows brooding from beneath sin's out-stretched wings over this one.

As I stood in the porch I have often fancied I could seethe animals and even the poultry expressing in dumb brute fashion, their joy and gratitude to the God from whom all blessings flow.
But to return to the verandah, although we have never left it.