r,
'directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he
hasn't the least idea that it came from me.'

Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and
from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for
their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting
emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart and
were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example.
Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by
his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition
to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out
of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same
audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a
boy, had his life depended on it.

Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so many
assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the schoolmaster
parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits, and deemed
himself one of the happiest men on earth. The windows of the two old
houses were ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of the
cheerful fires that burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend,
pausing to look upon them as they returned from their evening walk,
spoke softly together of the beautiful child, and looked round upon the
churchyard with a sigh.

CHAPTER 53

Nell was stirring early in the morning, and having discharged her
household tasks, and put everything in order for the good schoolmaster
(though sorely against his will, for he would have spared her the
pains), took down, from its nail by the fireside, a little bundle of
keys with which the bachelor had formally invested her on the previous
day, and went out alone to visit the old church.

The sky was serene and bright, the air clear, perfumed with the fresh
scent of newly fallen leaves, and grateful to every sense. The
neighbouring stream sparkled, and rolled onward with a tuneful sound;
the dew glistened on the green mounds, like tears shed by Good Spirits
over the dead. Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid
from each other, with laughing faces. They had an infant with them,
and had laid it down asleep upon a child's grave, in a little bed of
leaves. It was a new grave--the resting-place, perhaps, of some little
creature, who, meek and patient in its illness, had often sat and
watched t