upon. Consider, we should
have such a trouble in rousing the driver, and other things.'

Upon the whole it seemed wiser not to act on a mere fancy. She went to
bed again.

An hour later, when Owen was thinking of getting up, a knocking came to
the front door. The next minute something touched the glass of Owen's
window. He waited--the noise was repeated. A little gravel had been
thrown against it to arouse him.

He crossed the room, pulled up the blind, and looked out. A solemn white
face was gazing upwards from the road, expectantly straining to catch
the first glimpse of a person within the panes. It was the face of a
Knapwater man sitting on horseback.

Owen saw his errand. There is an unmistakable look in the face of every
man who brings tidings of death. Graye opened the window.

'Miss Aldclyffe....' said the messenger, and paused.

'Ah--dead?'

'Yes--she is dead.'

'When did she die?'

'At ten minutes past four, after another effusion. She knew best, you
see, sir. I started directly, by the rector's orders.'

SEQUEL

Fifteen months have passed, and we are brought on to Midsummer Night,
1867.

The picture presented is the interior of the old belfry of Carriford
Church, at ten o'clock in the evening.

Six Carriford men and one stranger are gathered there, beneath the light
of a flaring candle stuck on a piece of wood against the wall. The six
Carriford men are the well-known ringers of the fine-toned old bells in
the key of F, which have been music to the ears of Carriford parish and
the outlying districts for the last four hundred years. The stranger is
an assistant, who has appeared from nobody knows where.

The six natives--in their shirt-sleeves, and without hats--pull and
catch frantically at the dancing bellropes, the locks of their hair
waving in the breeze created by their quick motions; the stranger, who
has the treble bell, does likewise, but in his right mind and coat.
Their ever-changing shadows mingle on the wall in an endless variety of
kaleidoscopic forms, and the eyes of all the seven are religiously fixed
on a diagram like a large addition sum, which is chalked on the floor.

Vividly contrasting with the yellow light of the candle upon the four
unplastered walls of the tower, and upon the faces and clothes of the
men, is the scene discernible through the screen beneath the tower
archway. At the extremity of the long mysterious avenue of the nave and
chancel can be seen shaf