But I will turn over your suggestion in my mind , and do not quite despair of success . '' During the above discussion , the children -LRB- who understood not a word of it -RRB- had grown very sleepy , and were now sent off to bed . Their drowsy babble was heard , ascending the staircase , while a northwest-wind roared loudly among the tree-tops of Tanglewood , and played an anthem around the house . I have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect , so far as my own mind was concerned , by imagining a train of incidents , in which the spirit and mechanism of the fairy legend should be combined with the characters and manners of familiar life . In the little tale which follows , a subdued tinge of the wild and wonderful is thrown over a sketch of New England personages and scenery , yet , it is hoped , without entirely obliterating the sober hues of nature . Rather than a story of events claiming to be real , it may be considered as an allegory , such as the writers of the last century would have expressed in the shape of an Eastern tale , but to which I have endeavored to give a more life-like warmth than could be infused into those fanciful productions . In the twilight of a summer eve , a tall , dark figure , over which long and remote travel had thrown an outlandish aspect , was entering a village , not in `` Fairy Londe , '' but within our own familiar boundaries . The staff , on which this traveller leaned , had been his companion from the spot where it grew , in the jungles of Hindostan ; the hat , that overshadowed his sombre brow , had shielded him from the suns of Spain ; but his cheek had been blackened by the red-hot wind of an Arabian desert , and had felt the frozen breath of an Arctic region . Long sojourning amid wild and dangerous men , he still wore beneath his vest the ataghan which he had once struck into the throat of a Turkish robber . In every foreign clime he had lost something of his New England characteristics ; and , perhaps , from every people he had unconsciously borrowed a new peculiarity ; so that when the world-wanderer again trod the street of his native village , it is no wonder that he passed unrecognized , though exciting the gaze and curiosity of all . Yet , as his arm casually touched that of a young woman , who was wending her way to an evening lecture , she started , and almost uttered a cry . `` Ralph Cranfield ! '' was the name that she half articulated . `` Can that be my old playmate , Faith Egerton ? '' thought the traveller , looking round at her figure , but without pausing . Ralph Cranfield , from his youth upward , had felt himself marked out for a high destiny . He had imbibed the idea -- we say not whether it were revealed to him by witchcraft , or in a dream of prophecy , or that his brooding fancy had palmed its own dictates upon him as the oracles of a Sibyl -- but he had imbibed the idea , and held it firmest among his articles of faith , that three marvellous events of his life were to be confirmed to him by three signs . The first of these three fatalities , and perhaps the one on which his youthful imagination had dwelt most fondly , was the discovery of the maid , who alone , of all the maids on earth , could make him happy by her love . He was to roam around the world till he should meet a beautiful woman , wearing on her bosom a jewel in the shape of a heart ; whether of pearl , or ruby , or emerald , or carbuncle , or a changeful opal , or perhaps a priceless diamond , Ralph Cranfield little cared , so long as it were a heart of one peculiar shape . On encountering this lovely stranger , he was bound to address her thus : `` Maiden , I have brought you a heavy heart .
May I rest its weight XXXXX you ? ''
amid among around as beneath in into on to while