d to watch the blanching blossoms
blush beneath the glowing caress of the setting sun; and Alice o'
th' Nook's garden, with its beds of camomile, the scent of which
brought back, as perfumes are wont to, forms and faces long since
summoned by the 'mystic vanishers.' There, too, stood the old
manse--now tenantless--so long the temple of his studies and
domesticities, the shrine of joys and sorrows known to none save
himself. How the history of a life lay hidden there, each wall
scored with fateful characters, decipherable only to the eye of
him who for so many ears sought the shelter which they gave.

On the summit of the hill in front of him was the chapel, its
sagging roof silhouetted against the blue of the morning sky, the
tombstones, irregular and rude, rising from the billowy sea of
grave-mounds that lay around their base. Beyond him, in grandly
distant sweeps, rose the moors. How well he knew all their
contours, their histories, their names! How familiar he used to be
with all their moods--moods sombre and gladsome--as now they were
capped with mist, now radiant in sunlight, their sweeps dappled
with cloud shadows, moving or motionless, or white in the broad
eye of day. Thus it was, within the distance of a half-mile walk,
his past life, like an open scroll, lay before him; and he
remarked to Mr. Penrose that he had that morning found the book of
memory to be a book of life and a book of judgment also.

As the three men passed through the chapel-gates they were met by
old Joseph, who was hearty in his welcome of Mr. Morell.

'Eh! Mr. Morell,' he said, grasping his hand in a hard and earthy
palm, 'aw'm some fain to see yo'. We've hed no gradely preachin'
sin yo' left Rehoboth. This lad here,' pointing to Mr. Penrose,
'giz us a twothree crumbs betimes; but some on us, I con tell yo',
are fair clamming for th' bread o' life. None o' yo'r hawve-kneyded
duf (dough), nor your hawve-baked cakes, wi' a pinch o' currants
to fotch th' fancy tooth o' th' young uns. Nowe, but gradely
bread, yo' know.'

Mr. Morell tried to check the brutal volubility and plain-spokenness
of Joseph, but in vain. He continued the more vehemently.

'It's all luv naa, and no law. What mak' o' a gospel dun yo' co it
when there's no law, no thunerins (thunderings), Mr. Morell, no
leetnins? What's th' use o' a gospel wi'out law? No more use nor a
chip i' porritch. Dun yo' remember that sarmon yo' once preached
fro' "Jacob have I luved, but Esa