ich supplied only a dim fitful and
uncertain light in the bare chill room, once the most cosy and
attractive in the whole cheerful house.

How utterly desolate everything appeared now, with only the dreary
monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that
fell from the black-robed figure walking to and fro.

It had been such a happy, peaceful, blessed home, where piety,
charity, love, taste, refinement, and education all loaned their
charms to the store of witchery, which made it doubly sad to realize
that henceforth other feet would tread its floors, other voices echo
in its garden and verandahs.

To the girl who had really never known any other home (save the quiet
convent courts) this parsonage was the dearest spot she had yet
learned to love; and with profound sorrow she now prepared to bid
adieu for ever to the haven where her happiest years had passed like
a rosy dream.

The dreary deserted aspect of the house recalled to her mind--

"How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed"--

of Charles Lamb's quaint tender "Old familiar faces," as full of
melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from
it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had
first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and
later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the
floral cross and crown in the neighbouring churchyard.

To-night the words recurred with the mournful iteration of some
dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead
against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly and slowly:

"'We sat and talked until the night
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight--
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of mem