a path cut through the shrubs gave view
of a small wicketgate at the end of the grounds. I felt unwilling not
only to meet the lady, whom I guessed to be the new occupier, and to
whom I should have to make a somewhat awkward apology for intrusion, but
still more to encounter the scornful look of Mr. Vigors in what appeared
to my pride a false or undignified position. Involuntarily, therefore, I
turned down the path which would favour my escape unobserved. When about
half way between the house and the wicket-gate, the shrubs that had
clothed the path on either side suddenly opened to the left, bringing
into view a circle of sward, surrounded by irregular fragments of old
brickwork partially covered with ferns, creepers, or rockplants, weeds,
or wild flowers; and, in the centre of the circle, a fountain, or rather
well, over which was built a Gothic monastic dome, or canopy, resting
on small Norman columns, time-worn, dilapidated. A large willow overhung
this unmistakable relic of the ancient abbey. There was an air of
antiquity, romance, legend about this spot, so abruptly disclosed amidst
the delicate green of the young shrubberies. But it was not the ruined
wall nor the Gothic well that chained my footstep and charmed my eye.

It was a solitary human form, seated amidst the mournful ruins.

The form was so slight, the face so young, that at the first glance I
murmured to myself, "What a lovely child!" But as my eye lingered
it recognized in the upturned thoughtful brow, in the sweet, serious
aspect, in the rounded outlines of that slender shape, the inexpressible
dignity of virgin woman.

A book was on her lap, at her feet a little basket, half-filled with
violets and blossoms culled from the rock-plants that nestled amidst the
ruins. Behind her, the willow, like an emerald waterfall, showered down
its arching abundant green, bough after bough, from the tree-top to the
sward, descending in wavy verdure, bright towards the summit, in the
smile of the setting sun, and darkening into shadow as it neared the
earth.

She did not notice, she did not see me; her eyes were fixed upon the
horizon, where it sloped farthest into space, above the treetops and
the ruins,--fixed so intently that mechanically I turned my own gaze to
follow the flight of hers. It was as if she watched for some expected,
familiar sign to grow out from the depths of heaven; perhaps to greet,
before other eyes beheld it, the ray of the earliest star.