st
sprays, and the linnet's sweet babbling was heard from the happy nests
in its secret places; while from some unseen steeple the joyful sound
of chiming bells made music between heaven and earth fit for bands of
traveling angels.

They had dined at a wayside inn on jugged hare, roast beef, and
Yorkshire pudding, clotted cream and haver (oaten) bread, and the
careless stillness of physical well-being and of minds at ease needed no
speech, but the mutual smiling nod of intimate sympathy. For the sense
of joy and beauty which makes us eloquent is far inferior to that sense
which makes us silent.

This exquisite pause in life was suddenly ended by an exclamation from
the Judge. They were at the great iron gates of Rawdon Park, and
soon were slowly traversing its woody solitudes. The soft light, the
unspeakable green of the turf, the voice of ancient days murmuring in
the great oak trees, the deer asleep among the ferns, the stillness
of the summer afternoon filling the air with drowsy peace this was the
atmosphere into which they entered. Their road through this grand park
of three hundred acres was a wide, straight avenue shaded with beech
trees. The green turf on either hand was starred with primroses. In the
deep undergrowth, ferns waved and fanned each other, and the scent of
hidden violets saluted as they passed. Drowsily, as if half asleep,
the blackbirds whistled their couplets, and in the thickest hedges the
little brown thrushes sang softly to their brooding mates. For half an
hour they kept this heavenly path, and then a sudden turn brought them
their first sight of the old home.

It was a stately, irregular building of red brick, sandaled and veiled
in ivy. The numerous windows were all latticed, the chimneys in
picturesque stacks, the sloping roof made of flags of sandstone. It
stood in the center of a large garden, at the bottom of which ran a
babbling little river--a cheerful tongue of life in the sweet, silent
place. They crossed it by a pretty bridge, and in a few minutes stood
at the great door of the mansion. It was wide open, and the Squire, with
outstretched hands, rose to meet them. While yet upon the threshold he
kissed both Ethel and Ruth, and, clasping the Judge's hand, gazed at him
with such a piercing, kindly look that the eyes of both men filled with
tears.

He led them into the hall, and standing there he seemed almost a part of
it. In his youth he had been a son of Anak, and his great siz