d-time
surroundings--candles lighted us when the long twilight had faded away.

The splendid dark-oak paneling that reached to the ceiling of the dining
room and the richly carved mantel-piece, they told us, were once in
rooms of Ludlow Castle. As we sat at our late dinner, a familiar melody
from the sonorous chimes of the church-tower came through the open
window to our great delight. "O, what a nuisance those bells are," said
the neat waiting maid, "and a bad thing for the town, too. Why, the
commercials all keep away from Ludlow. They can't sleep for the noise."
"Do the chimes ring in the night?" we asked. "At midnight and at four
o'clock in the morning," she said, and I was fearful that we would not
awake. But we did, and the melody in the silence of the night, amid the
surroundings of the quaint old town, awakened a sentiment in us no doubt
quite different from that which vexed the soul of the commercial. But we
felt that credit was due the honest people of Ludlow, who preferred the
music of the sweet-toned bells to sordid business; and, as the maid
said, the bells did not awaken anyone who was used to them--surely a fit
reward to the citizens for their high-minded disregard of mere material
interests.

I said we were fortunate at Ludlow. The gray, chilly weather and almost
continual rain which had followed us for the last few days vanished and
the next morning dawned cool and fair, with sky of untainted blue. Our
steps were first turned towards the castle, which we soon reached. There
was no one to admit us. The custodian's booth was closed, but there was
a small gate in the great entrance and we walked in. We had the noble
ruin to ourselves, and a place richer in story and more beautiful and
majestic in decay we did not find elsewhere. A maze of gray walls rose
all around us, but fortunately every part of the ruin bore a printed
card telling us just what we wanted to know. The crumbling walls
surrounded a beautiful lawn, starred with wild flowers--buttercups and
forget-me-nots--and a flock of sheep grazed peacefully in the wide
enclosure. We wandered through the deserted, roofless chambers where
fireplaces with elaborate stone mantels and odd bits of carving told of
the pristine glory of the place. The castle was of great extent,
covering the highest point in Ludlow, and before the day of artillery
must have been well-nigh impregnable. The walls on the side toward the
river rise from a cliff which drops down a s