with almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye appeared to
grasp them, and finally he took a minute survey of an edifice
which stood on the opposite side of the street, directly in front
of the church-door, where he was stationed. It was a large,
square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by a balcony,
which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window,
communicating therewith.

"Perhaps this is the very house I have been seeking," thought
Robin.

Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening to a murmur
which swept continually along the street, yet was scarcely
audible, except to an unaccustomed ear like his; it was a low,
dull, dreamy sound, compounded of many noises, each of which was
at too great a distance to be separately heard. Robin marvelled
at this snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever its
continuity was broken by now and then a distant shout, apparently
loud where it originated. But altogether it was a sleep-inspiring
sound, and, to shake off its drowsy influence, Robin arose, and
climbed a window-frame, that he might view the interior of the
church. There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down upon
the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet aisles. A fainter
yet more awful radiance was hovering around the pulpit, and one
solitary ray had dared to rest upon the open page of the great
Bible. Had nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the
house which man had builded? Or was that heavenly light the
visible sanctity of the place,--visible because no earthly and
impure feet were within the walls? The scene made Robin's heart
shiver with a sensation of loneliness stronger than he had ever