d with wet.
The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still some distance
off when he paused before one of the smallest of the detached houses by
the wayside, standing in its own garden, the latter being divided from
the road by a row of wooden palings. Scrutinizing the spot to ensure
that he was not mistaken, he opened the gate and gently knocked at the
cottage door.

When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in ordinary
cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it was
impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the passage.
Barnet said at random, 'Does Miss Savile live here?'

A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a sudden
afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a light, it said:
but the night being wet, mother had not thought it worth while to trim
the passage lamp.

'Don't trouble yourself to get a light for me,' said Barnet hastily; 'it
is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile's sitting-room?'

The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned, signified
a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward at the same
moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On entering the room
he closed the door behind him, pausing till he heard the retreating
footsteps of the child.

He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though not
poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to the
shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament of the
mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was enclosed by a
frame of embroidered card-board--evidently the work of feminine hands--and
it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly lieutenant in the navy. From
behind the lamp on the table a female form now rose into view, that of a
young girl, and a resemblance between her and the portrait was early
discoverable. She had been so absorbed in some occupation on the other
side of the lamp as to have barely found time to realize her visitor's
presence.

They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The face
that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the Raffaelesque oval of
its contour was remarkable for an English countenance, and that
countenance housed in a remote country-road to an unheard-of harbour. But
her features did not do justice to this splendid beginning: Nature had
recollected that she was not in Italy; and the