ns; though it has been built up from the
ruins. It is the parsonage, where the rector of the parish lives.
Beyond this wood and these buildings, old and new, the eye can catch
only bits of hills and woods that promise beauty further on; but nearer
than they, and making a boundary line between the present and the
distant, the flash of a little river is seen, which curves about the
old priory lands. A somewhat doubtful sunlight is struggling over it
all; casting a stray beam on the grass, and a light on the ivy of the
old tower.

"What a queer old place it must have been," said Eleanor.

"How old is it?"

"O I don't know--ages! Do you mean really how old? I am sure I can't
tell; I never can keep those things in my head. If Dr. Cairnes would
come out, he could tell you all about it, and more."

"Dr. Cairnes, the rector?"

"Yes. He keeps it all in _his_ head, I know. The ruins are instead of a
family to him."

"They must date back pretty far, judging by those Norman arches."

"Norman arches?--what, those round ones? O, they do. The priory was
founded by some old courtier or soldier in the time of Henry the First,
who got disgusted with the world. That is the beginning of all these
places, isn't it?"

"Do you mean, that it is the beginning of all religious feeling?"

"I really think it is. I wouldn't tell Dr. Cairnes so however. How
sweet these violets are. Dear little blue things!"

"Do you suppose,", said the young man, stooping to pick one or two,
"that they are less sweet to me than to you?"

"Why should they be?"

"Because, religion is the most precious thing in the world to me; and
by your rule, I must be disgusted with the world, and all sweet things
have lost their savour."

He spoke with quiet gravity, and Eleanor's eye went to his face with a
bright glance of inquiry. It came back with no change of opinion.

"You don't convert me," she said. "I do not know what you have given up
for religion, so I cannot judge. But all the other people I ever saw,
grew religious only because they had lost all care about everything
else."

"I wonder how that discontented old soldier found himself, when he got
into these solitudes?" said the young man, with a smile of his own
then. It was sweet, and a little arch, and withal harmonised completely
with the ordinary gravity of his face, not denying it at all. Eleanor
looked, once and again, with some curiosity, but the smile passed away
as quietly as it had come.