rawing o' the
lots. And I should like to talk to him about the religion o' this
country-side, for I partly think he doesn't know on it."

Eppie was very joyful, for there was the prospect not only of wonder
and delight at seeing a strange country, but also of coming back to
tell Aaron all about it. Aaron was so much wiser than she was about
most things--it would be rather pleasant to have this little advantage
over him. Mrs. Winthrop, though possessed with a dim fear of dangers
attendant on so long a journey, and requiring many assurances that it
would not take them out of the region of carriers' carts and slow
waggons, was nevertheless well pleased that Silas should revisit his
own country, and find out if he had been cleared from that false
accusation.

"You'd be easier in your mind for the rest o' your life, Master
Marner," said Dolly--"that you would. And if there's any light to be
got up the yard as you talk on, we've need of it i' this world, and I'd
be glad on it myself, if you could bring it back."

So on the fourth day from that time, Silas and Eppie, in their Sunday
clothes, with a small bundle tied in a blue linen handkerchief, were
making their way through the streets of a great manufacturing town.
Silas, bewildered by the changes thirty years had brought over his
native place, had stopped several persons in succession to ask them the
name of this town, that he might be sure he was not under a mistake
about it.

"Ask for Lantern Yard, father--ask this gentleman with the tassels on
his shoulders a-standing at the shop door; he isn't in a hurry like the
rest," said Eppie, in some distress at her father's bewilderment, and
ill at ease, besides, amidst the noise, the movement, and the multitude
of strange indifferent faces.

"Eh, my child, he won't know anything about it," said Silas;
"gentlefolks didn't ever go up the Yard. But happen somebody can tell
me which is the way to Prison Street, where the jail is. I know the way
out o' that as if I'd seen it yesterday."

With some difficulty, after many turnings and new inquiries, they
reached Prison Street; and the grim walls of the jail, the first object
that answered to any image in Silas's memory, cheered him with the
certitude, which no assurance of the town's name had hitherto given
him, that he was in his native place.

"Ah," he said, drawing a long breath, "there's the jail, Eppie; that's
just the same: I aren't afraid now. It's the third turni