. He
strolled on his way quite oblivious to the fact that the moon had just
risen, and that the landscape was one for him to linger over, especially
if there were any Gothic architecture in the line of the lunar rays. The
inference was that though this girl must be of a serious turn of mind,
wilfulness was not foreign to her composition: and it was probable that
her daily doings evinced without much abatement by religion the unbroken
spirit and pride of life natural to her age.

The little village inn at which Somerset intended to pass the night
lay a mile further on, and retracing his way up to the stile he rambled
along the lane, now beginning to be streaked like a zebra with the
shadows of some young trees that edged the road. But his attention was
attracted to the other side of the way by a hum as of a night-bee,
which arose from the play of the breezes over a single wire of telegraph
running parallel with his track on tall poles that had appeared by the
road, he hardly knew when, from a branch route, probably leading from
some town in the neighbourhood to the village he was approaching. He did
not know the population of Sleeping-Green, as the village of his search
was called, but the presence of this mark of civilization seemed to
signify that its inhabitants were not quite so far in the rear of their
age as might be imagined; a glance at the still ungrassed heap of earth
round the foot of each post was, however, sufficient to show that it was
at no very remote period that they had made their advance.

Aided by this friendly wire Somerset had no difficulty in keeping his
course, till he reached a point in the ascent of a hill at which the
telegraph branched off from the road, passing through an opening in the
hedge, to strike across an undulating down, while the road wound round
to the left. For a few moments Somerset doubted and stood still. The
wire sang on overhead with dying falls and melodious rises that invited
him to follow; while above the wire rode the stars in their courses, the
low nocturn of the former seeming to be the voices of those stars,

'Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.'

Recalling himself from these reflections Somerset decided to follow the
lead of the wire. It was not the first time during his present tour that
he had found his way at night by the help of these musical threads which
the post-office authorities had erected all over the country for quite
another purpose than to