a low
voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the schoolhouse, I'll
be sworn. Five-and-thirty pounds a-year in this beautiful place!'

They admired everything--the old grey porch, the mullioned windows, the
venerable gravestones dotting the green churchyard, the ancient tower,
the very weathercock; the brown thatched roofs of cottage, barn, and
homestead, peeping from among the trees; the stream that rippled by the
distant water-mill; the blue Welsh mountains far away. It was for such
a spot the child had wearied in the dense, dark, miserable haunts of
labour. Upon her bed of ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through
which they had forced their way, visions of such scenes--beautiful
indeed, but not more beautiful than this sweet reality--had been always
present to her mind. They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy
distance, as the prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter;
but, as they receded, she had loved and panted for them more.

'I must leave you somewhere for a few minutes,' said the schoolmaster,
at length breaking the silence into which they had fallen in their
gladness. 'I have a letter to present, and inquiries to make, you
know. Where shall I take you? To the little inn yonder?'

'Let us wait here,' rejoined Nell. 'The gate is open. We will sit in
the church porch till you come back.'

'A good place too,' said the schoolmaster, leading the way towards it,
disencumbering himself of his portmanteau, and placing it on the stone
seat. 'Be sure that I come back with good news, and am not long gone!'

So, the happy schoolmaster put on a bran-new pair of gloves which he
had carried in a little parcel in his pocket all the way, and hurried
off, full of ardour and excitement.

The child watched him from the porch until the intervening foliage hid
him from her view, and then stepped softly out into the old
churchyard--so solemn and quiet that every rustle of her dress upon the
fallen leaves, which strewed the path and made her footsteps noiseless,
seemed an invasion of its silence. It was a very aged, ghostly place;
the church had been built many hundreds of years ago, and had once had
a convent or monastery attached; for arches in ruins, remains of oriel
windows, and fragments of blackened walls, were yet standing-, while
other portions of the old building, which had crumbled away and fallen
down, were mingled with the churchyard earth and overgrown with grass,
as if they to