e of the stalwart Corporal.

"He eyes me hard," thought he; "yet he does not seem to remember me.
I must be greatly changed. 'Tis fortunate, however, that I am not
recognised: fain, indeed, at this time, would I come and go unnoticed
and alone."

The horseman fell into a reverie, which was broken by the murmur of the
sunny rivulet, fretting over each little obstacle it met, the happy and
spoiled child of Nature! That murmur rang on the horseman's ear like
a voice from his boyhood, how familiar was it, how dear! No tone of
music--no haunting air, ever recalled so rushing a host of memories
and associations as that simple, restless, everlasting sound!
Everlasting!--all had changed,--the trees had sprung up or
decayed,--some cottages around were ruins,--some new and unfamiliar ones
supplied their place, and on the stranger himself--on all those whom the
sound recalled to his heart, Time had been, indeed, at work, but with
the same exulting bound and happy voice that little brook leaped along
its way. Ages hence, may the course be as glad, and the murmur as
full of mirth! They are blessed things, those remote and unchanging
streams!--they fill us with the same love as if they were living
creatures!--and in a green corner of the world there is one that, for my
part, I never see without forgetting myself to tears--tears that I would
not lose for a king's ransom; tears that no other sight or sound could
call from their source; tears of what affection, what soft regret; tears
that leave me for days afterwards, a better and a kinder man!

The traveller, after a brief pause, continued his road; and now he came
full upon the old Manorhouse. The weeds were grown up in the garden, the
mossed paling was broken in many places, the house itself was shut up,
and the sun glanced on the deep-sunk casements without finding its way
into the desolate interior. High above the old hospitable gate hung
a board, announcing that the house was for sale, and referring the
curious, or the speculating, to the attorney of the neighbouring town.
The horseman sighed heavily, and muttered to himself; then turning up
the road that led to the back entrance, he came into the court-yard, and
leading his horse into an empty stable, he proceeded on foot through the
dismantled premises, pausing with every moment, and holding a sad and
ever-changing commune with himself. An old woman, a stranger to him, was
the sole inmate of the house, and imagining he came t