that reading; the feeling which brought out the depth of
the sense, the tones, sweeter than the flute, which clothed the divine
words in music. As Darrell ceased, some beauty seemed gone from the
day. He lingered a few minutes, talking kindly and familiarly, and then
turned into another cottage, where lay a sick woman. He listened to her
ailments, promised to send her something to do her good from his own
stores, cheered up her spirits, and, leaving her happy, turned to Lionel
with a glorious smile, that seemed to ask, "And is there not power in
this?"

Put it was the sad peculiarity of this remarkable man that all his moods
were subject to rapid and seemingly unaccountable variations. It was as
if some great blow had fallen on the mainspring of his organization, and
left its original harmony broken up into fragments each impressive in
itself, but running one into the other with an abrupt discord, as a
harp played upon by the winds. For, after this evident effort at
self-consolation or self-support in soothing or strengthening others,
suddenly Darrell's head fell again upon his breast, and he walked on, up
the village lane, heeding no longer either the open doors of expectant
cottagers or the salutation of humble passers-by. "And I could have been
so happy here!" he said suddenly. "Can I not be so yet? Ay, perhaps,
when I am thoroughly old,--tied to the world but by the thread of an
hour. Old men do seem happy; behind them, all memories faint, save those
of childhood and sprightly youth; before them, the narrow ford, and the
sun dawning up through the clouds on the other shore. 'T is the critical
descent into age in which man is surely most troubled; griefs gone,
still rankling; nor-strength yet in his limbs, passion yet in his
heart-reconciled to what loom nearest in the prospect,--the armchair
and the palsied head. Well! life is a quaint puzzle. Bits the most
incongruous join into each other, and the scheme thus gradually becomes
symmetrical and clear; when, lo! as the infant claps his hands and
cries, 'See! see! the puzzle is made out!' all the pieces are swept back
into the box,--black box with the gilded nails. Ho! Lionel, look
up; there is our village church, and here, close at my right, the
churchyard!"

Now while Darrell and his young companion were directing their gaze to
the right of the village lane, towards the small gray church,--towards
the sacred burial-ground in which, here and there amongst humbler
gr