d clang of horsemen and men-at-arms that it must
once have known. And near by is a grand old church, solemn and silent
too, but differently so from its twin-brother the castle. The one is
like a warrior resting after his battles, thinking sadly of the wild
scenes he has seen and taken part in; the other like a holy man of
old, silent and solemn too, but with the weight of human sorrows and
anxieties that have been confided to him, yet ever ready to sympathise
and to point upwards with a hope that never fails.

These at least were the feelings that the sight of the old church and
the old castle gave _me_, children dear. I don't suppose Ted thought of
them in this way when he first made their acquaintance, and yet I don't
know. He might not have been able to say much of what he felt, he was
such a little fellow. But he _did_ feel, and in a way that was strange
and new, and nearly took his breath away the first time he entered the
beautiful old church, walking quietly up the aisle behind his father,
his little hat in his hand, gazing up with his earnest eyes at the
mysterious stretch of the lofty roof. "O mother," he said, when he went
home, "when I am big I will always like the _high_ church best." And
when the clear ringing chimes burst forth, as they did with ever-fresh
beauty four times a day, sounding to the baby fancy as if they came
straight down from heaven, it was all Ted could do not to burst into
tears, as he had done that summer day when Mabel had sung "Home, sweet
home" in the mountain-gorge.

For it was in this old town, with its church and castle and quaint
streets, where some of the houses are still painted black and white, and
others lean forward in the top stories as if they wanted to kiss each
other; where the front doors mostly open right on to the street, and you
come upon the dear old gardens as a sort of delicious surprise at the
back; where each turn as you walk about these same old streets gives you
a new peep, more delightful than the last, of the river or the cliffs or
the far distant hills with their tender lights and shadows; where, on
market days the country people come trooping in with their poultry and
butter and eggs, with here and there a scarlet cloak among them, the
coming and going giving the old High Street the look almost of a foreign
town;--here in this dear old place little Ted took root again, and
learned to love his new home so much that he forgot to pine for the
mountains and th