ught Midwinter to the park gates. "Am I fated
to see nothing and hear nothing to-day, which can give me heart and hope
for the future?" he thought, as he angrily swung back the lodge gate.
"Even the people Allan has let the cottage to are people whose lives
are imbittered by a household misery which it is _my_ misfortune to have
found out!"

He took the first road that lay before him, and walked on, noticing
little, immersed in his own thoughts.

More than an hour passed before the necessity of turning back entered
his mind. As soon as the idea occurred to him, he consulted his watch,
and determined to retrace his steps, so as to be at the house in good
time to meet Allan on his return. Ten minutes of walking brought him
back to a point at which three roads met, and one moment's observation
of the place satisfied him that he had entirely failed to notice at the
time by which of the three roads he had advanced. No sign-post was to
be seen; the country on either side was lonely and flat, intersected
by broad drains and ditches. Cattle were grazing here and there, and a
windmill rose in the distance above the pollard willows that fringed the
low horizon. But not a house was to be seen, and not a human creature
appeared on the visible perspective of any one of the three roads.
Midwinter glanced back in the only direction left to look at--the
direction of the road along which he had just been walking. There, to
his relief, was the figure of a man, rapidly advancing toward him, of
whom he could ask his way.

The figure came on, clad from head to foot in dreary black--a moving
blot on the brilliant white surface of the sun-brightened road. He was
a lean, elderly, miserably respectable man. He wore a poor old black
dress-coat, and a cheap brown wig, which made no pretense of being his
own natural hair. Short black trousers clung like attached old servants
round his wizen legs; and rusty black gaiters hid all they could of his
knobbed, ungainly feet. Black crape added its mite to the decayed and
dingy wretchedness of his old beaver hat; black mohair in the obsolete
form of a stock drearily encircled his neck and rose as high as his
haggard jaws. The one morsel of color he carried about him was a
lawyer's bag of blue serge, as lean and limp as himself. The one
attractive feature in his clean-shaven, weary old face was a neat set of
teeth--teeth (as honest as his wig) which said plainly to all inquiring
eyes, "We pass our night