carriages also; the
greater part of the house was shut up, and she resided in the smallest
rooms. All that was allowed to remain of her former contingent of male
servants were an odd man and a boy. Instead of using a carriage she now
drove about in a donkey-chair, the said boy walking in front to clear the
way and keep the animal in motion; while she wore, so his informants
reported, not an ordinary widow's cap or bonnet, but something even
plainer, the black material being drawn tightly round her face, giving
her features a small, demure, devout cast, very pleasing to the eye.

'Now, what's the most curious thing in this, Mr. San Cleeve,' said Sammy
Blore, who, in calling to inquire after Swithin's health, had imparted
some of the above particulars, 'is that my lady seems not to mind being a
pore woman half so much as we do at seeing her so. 'Tis a wonderful
gift, Mr. San Cleeve, wonderful, to be able to guide yerself, and not let
loose yer soul in blasting at such a misfortune. I should go and drink
neat regular, as soon as I had swallered my breakfast, till my innerds
was burnt out like a' old copper, if it had happened to me; but my lady's
plan is best. Though I only guess how one feels in such losses, to be
sure, for I never had nothing to lose.'

Meanwhile the observatory was not forgotten; nor that visitant of
singular shape and habits which had appeared in the sky from no one knew
whence, trailing its luminous streamer, and proceeding on its way in the
face of a wondering world, till it should choose to vanish as suddenly as
it had come.

When, about a month after the above dialogue took place, Swithin was
allowed to go about as usual, his first pilgrimage was to the Rings-Hill
Speer. Here he studied at leisure what he had come to see.

On his return to the homestead, just after sunset, he found his
grandmother and Hannah in a state of great concern. The former was
looking out for him against the evening light, her face showing itself
worn and rutted, like an old highway, by the passing of many days. Her
information was that in his absence Lady Constantine had called in her
driving-chair, to inquire for him. Her ladyship had wished to observe
the comet through the great telescope, but had found the door locked when
she applied at the tower. Would he kindly leave the door unfastened to-
morrow, she had asked, that she might be able to go to the column on the
following evening for the same purpose? S