It was while he was engaged in this pursuit, that he was greatly startled and distressed by a most unexpected occurrence.
The little room in which he was accustomed to sit, when busy at his books, was on the ground-floor, at the back of the house.

It was quite a cottage-room, with a lattice-window: around which were clusters of jessamine and honeysuckle, that crept over the casement, and filled the place with their delicious perfume.

It looked into a garden, whence a wicket-gate opened into a small paddock; all beyond, was fine meadow-land and wood.

There was no other dwelling near, in that direction; and the prospect it commanded was very extensive.
One beautiful evening, when the first shades of twilight were beginning to settle upon the earth, Oliver sat at this window, intent upon his books.

He had been poring over them for some time; and, as the day had been uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a great deal, it is no disparagement to the authors, whoever they may have been, to say, that gradually and by slow degrees, he fell asleep.
There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure.