, your sentiments do you honour; you'll be sure not to say
anything of our little mystery."

"Not a syllable."

Two days after this three old maids made an excursion to the village of
Covedale, and lo! the cottage in question was shut up--the woman and the
child were gone. The people in the village knew nothing about them--had
seen nothing particular in the woman or child--had always supposed
them mother and daughter; and the gentleman identified by the clerical
inquisitor with the banker had never but once been observed in the
place.

"The vile old parson," said the eldest of the old maids, "to take away
so good a man's character!--and the fly will cost one pound two, with
the baiting!"

CHAPTER VI.

"In this disposition was I, when looking out of my window one
day to take the air, I perceived a kind of peasant who looked
at me very attentively."--GIL BLAS.

A SUMMER'S evening in a retired country town has something melancholy
in it. You have the streets of a metropolis without their animated
bustle--you have the stillness of the country without its birds and
flowers. The reader will please to bring before him a quiet street in
the quiet country town of C------, in a quiet evening in quiet June; the
picture is not mirthful--two young dogs are playing in the street, one
old dog is watching by a newly-painted door. A few ladies of middle age
move noiselessly along the pavement, returning home to tea: they wear
white muslin dresses, green spencers a little faded, straw poke bonnets
with green or coffee-coloured gauze veils. By twos and threes they have
disappeared within the thresholds of small neat houses, with little
railings, inclosing little green plots. Threshold, house, railing, and
plot, each as like to the other as are those small commodities called
"nest-tables," which, "even as a broken mirror multiplies," summon to
the bewildered eye countless iterations of one four-legged individual.
Paradise Place was a set of nest houses.

A cow had passed through the streets with a milkwoman behind; two young
and gay shopmen "looking after the gals," had reconnoitred the street,
and vanished in despair. The twilight advanced--but gently; and though a
star or two were up, the air was still clear. At the open window of one
of the tenements in this street sat Alice Darvil. She had been working
(that pretty excuse to women for thinking), and as the thoughts grew
upon her, and the evening waned, the work had fa