th his disease) he had "taken to drink,"
not excessively, but he seemed to be, most of the time, in a lightly
inebriated condition. He was a strange and fluent talker, often ecstatic.

"It is commonly believed, Miss Hungerford," he said to me, once; "that we
start on the summit of life, that we descend into the valley, that the
sun is westering; but as for me, I seem to look far below there on the
mists and dew of earlier years. I walk among the hills. The horizon
widens. The air grows thin. I see the solemn streaks of dawn appearing
through the gloom. Ah," he murmured, again; "weak and erring though I
undoubtedly am, I have a kinship with the living Christ. Yes, even such
kinship as human worthlessness may have with infinite perfection. People
will say to you about here, Miss Hungerford; 'Oh, never mind Godfrey
Cradlebow. He's always being converted, why, he has been converted twenty
times already!' very true, ay, and a hundred times, and I trust I shall
taste the sweets of conversion many times more before I die. I do not
believe the soul to be a barren tract, so far removed from the ocean of
God's love, that it may be washed by the waves only once in a lifetime,
and that, in case of some terrible flood. But I rejoice daily in the
sweet and natural return of the tide. How the shores wait for it! Strewn
with weeds and wreck, scorched by the sun, chilled by the night, how it
listens for the sound of its coming! until it rushes in--ah! roar after
roar--all-covering, all-hiding, all-embracing!"

Godfrey Cradlebow shook his head rapturously, tears rolled down his
cheeks, and all the while he went on rapidly with his netting.

He had the natural tact and grace of a gentleman, and was especially
courteous to his wife. This brought down upon him the derision of the
Wallencampers, whose conjugal relations were seldom more delicately
implied than by a reference--"my woman thar'!" or "my man over thar'!"
with an accompanying jerk of the thumb.

Lydia, Godfrey Cradlebow's wife, was tall and slight, with dark hair and
eyes--a perfect face, though worn and sad. She invariably wore over her
cotton gown, on occasions when she went out, a very fine, very thin
old-fashioned mantilla, bordered with a deep black fringe. This pathetic
remnant of gentility, borne rudely about by the Wallencamp winds, with
Lydia's refined face and melancholy dark eyes, gave her a very
interesting and picturesque appearance; though I never thought she wore