The sun blazed down and down, till it was within half-an-hour
of its setting; but the sketcher still lingered at his
occupation of measuring and copying the chevroned doorway--a
bold and quaint example of a transitional style of
architecture, which formed the tower entrance to an English
village church. The graveyard being quite open on its western
side, the tweed-clad figure of the young draughtsman, and the
tall mass of antique masonry which rose above him to a
battlemented parapet, were fired to a great brightness by the
solar rays, that crossed the neighbouring mead like a warp of
gold threads, in whose mazes groups of equally lustrous gnats
danced and wailed incessantly.

He was so absorbed in his pursuit that he did not mark the
brilliant chromatic effect of which he composed the central
feature, till it was brought home to his intelligence by the
warmth of the moulded stonework under his touch when
measuring; which led him at length to turn his head and gaze
on its cause.

There are few in whom the sight of a sunset does not beget as
much meditative melancholy as contemplative pleasure, the
human decline and death that it illustrates being too obvious
to escape the notice of the simplest observer. The sketcher,
as if he had been brought to this reflection many hundreds of
times before by the same spectacle, showed that he did not
wish to pursue it just now, by turning away his face after a
few moments, to resume his architectural studies.

He took his measurements carefully, and as if he reverenced