together, my kiln is half a bushel the richer for him."

So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it
fall upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled
into fragments.



THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS

The summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over
a broad extent of uneven country. Some of its brightest rays were
flung into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the
writer has, up the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failed
to quench his thirst. The work of neat hands and considerate art
was visible about this blessed fountain. An open cistern, hewn
and hollowed out of solid stone, was placed above the waters,
which filled it to the brim, but by some invisible outlet were
conveyed away without dripping down its sides. Though the basin
had not room for another drop, and the continual gush of water
made a tremor on the surface, there was a secret charm that
forbade it to overflow. I remember, that when I had slaked my
summer thirst, and sat panting by the cistern, it was my fanciful
theory that Nature could not afford to lavish so pure a liquid,
as she does the waters of all meaner fountains.

While the moon was hanging almost perpendicularly over this spot,
two figures appeared on the summit of the hill, and came with
noiseless footsteps down towards the spring. They were then in
the first freshness of youth; nor is there a wrinkle now on