again, unhesitatingly, on
the genial sky--deprived, by sophistication and culture, of the
instincts necessary to their preservation: the wild untutored denizens
of the field and the quiet woods rarely betray such lack of
presentiment. But such are everywhere the results of civilisation;
which, however beneficial to society in the aggregate, gives its
objects altogether an artificial character, and, by depriving them of
their natural and proper instincts, renders them helpless when single
and unaided; while it makes them more dependent upon each other, and
on the factitious wants, the offspring of those very habits and
conditions into which they are thrown.

On the hollow trunk of a decrepit ash the ivy was blossoming
profusely, gathering its support from the frail prop which it was
fated to destroy. The insects were humming and frolicking about on
their tiny wings, taking their last enjoyment of their little day, ere
they gave place to the ephemera of the next.

"How merry and jocund every life-gifted thing looks forth on this our
festival. It might be Nature holding high jubilee in honour of Holt's
daughter on her wedding-night!"

Thus spake Nicholas Haworth to his sister Alice, as they stepped forth
from the hall porch, and stayed for a moment by this aged trunk to
admire the scene that was fast losing its glory and its brightness.
They were bidden to the marriage-supper at Stubley, where a masqued
ball was to be given after the nuptials of Dorothy Holt, the daughter
of its possessor, with Entwisle, the heir of Foxholes.[11]

"It may be holiday and gladness too; but I feel it not," said Alice
pensively, as she leaned on her brother's arm, while they turned into
a narrow lane overarched by irregular groups of beech and sycamore
trees.

"Heed not such idle fancies," said her brother. "And so, because,
forsooth, an impudent beggar-man predicts some strange event that must
shortly befall thee, the apprehension doth cast its shadow ere it
come, and thou art ready to conjure up some grim spectre in the gloom
it hath created. But, in good sooth, here comes the wizard himself who
hath raised these melancholic and evil humours."

"I never pass him without a shudder," said she, at the same time
cringing closely to her protector.

This awful personage was one of an ancient class, now probably
extinct; a sort of privileged order, supplying, or rather usurping,
the place of the mendicant friars of former days. Their vocat