s stirring in Angela's
heart as with slow steps she led the way into the little village
churchyard, a similar spot to that which is to be found in many a
country parish, except that, the population being very small, there
were but few recent graves. Most of the mounds had no head-stones to
recall the names of the neglected dead, but here and there were dotted
discoloured slabs, some sunk a foot or two into the soil, a few lying
prone upon it, and the remainder thrown by the gradual subsidence of
their supports into every variety of angle, as though they had been
suddenly halted in the maddest whirl of a grotesque dance of death.

Picking her way through these, Angela stopped under an ancient yew,
and, pointing to one of the two shadowed mounts to which the moonlight
scarcely struggled, said, in a low voice,

"That is my mother's grave."

It was a modest tenement enough, a little heap of close green turf,
surrounded by a railing, and planted with sweet-williams and forget-
me-nots. At its head was placed a white marble cross, on which Arthur
could just distinguish the words "Hilda Caresfoot," and the date of
death.

He was about to speak, but she stopped him with a gentle movement, and
then, stepping forward to the head of the railing, she buried her face
in her hands, and remained motionless. Arthur watched her with
curiosity. What, he wondered, was passing in the mind of this strange
and beautiful woman, who had grown up so sweet and pure amidst moral
desolation, like a white lily blooming alone on the black African
plains in winter? Suddenly she raised her head, and saw the inquiring
look he bent upon her. She came towards him, and, in that sweet, half-
pleading voice which was one of her greatest charms, she said,

"I fear you think me very foolish?"

"Why should I think you foolish?"

"Because I have come here at night to stand before a half-forgotten
grave."

"I do not think you foolish, indeed. I was only wondering what was
passing in your mind."

Angela hung her head and made no answer, and the clock above them
boomed out the hour, raising its sullen note in insolent defiance of
the silence. What is it that is so solemn about the striking of the
belfry-clock when one stands in a churchyard at night? Is it that the
hour softens our natures, and makes them more amenable to semi-
superstitious influences? Or is it that the thousand evidences of
departed mortality which surround us, appealing with dumb fo