s ago, when the factory was already built, nor from any other
source within his reach, could Silas learn anything of the old Lantern
Yard friends, or of Mr. Paston the minister.

"The old place is all swep' away," Silas said to Dolly Winthrop on the
night of his return--"the little graveyard and everything. The old
home's gone; I've no home but this now. I shall never know whether
they got at the truth o' the robbery, nor whether Mr. Paston could ha'
given me any light about the drawing o' the lots. It's dark to me,
Mrs. Winthrop, that is; I doubt it'll be dark to the last."

"Well, yes, Master Marner," said Dolly, who sat with a placid listening
face, now bordered by grey hairs; "I doubt it may. It's the will o'
Them above as a many things should be dark to us; but there's some
things as I've never felt i' the dark about, and they're mostly what
comes i' the day's work. You were hard done by that once, Master
Marner, and it seems as you'll never know the rights of it; but that
doesn't hinder there _being_ a rights, Master Marner, for all it's dark
to you and me."

"No," said Silas, "no; that doesn't hinder. Since the time the child
was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had light
enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me, I think I
shall trusten till I die."

CONCLUSION.

There was one time of the year which was held in Raveloe to be
especially suitable for a wedding. It was when the great lilacs and
laburnums in the old-fashioned gardens showed their golden and purple
wealth above the lichen-tinted walls, and when there were calves still
young enough to want bucketfuls of fragrant milk. People were not so
busy then as they must become when the full cheese-making and the
mowing had set in; and besides, it was a time when a light bridal dress
could be worn with comfort and seen to advantage.

Happily the sunshine fell more warmly than usual on the lilac tufts the
morning that Eppie was married, for her dress was a very light one.
She had often thought, though with a feeling of renunciation, that the
perfection of a wedding-dress would be a white cotton, with the tiniest
pink sprig at wide intervals; so that when Mrs. Godfrey Cass begged to
provide one, and asked Eppie to choose what it should be, previous
meditation had enabled her to give a decided answer at once.

Seen at a little distance as she walked across the churchyard and down
the village, she seemed to be