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,