been overheard murmuring to himself by way of consolement, 'Bishops
pass; the church remains.' He had been a great friend of the late
sir Ringwood; and although the distance from his parish was too
great to be travelled often, he seldom let a year go by without
paying a visit to his friend's widow and daughter.

Turning her back on the cenotaph of their former greatness, Dorothy
dived into a long pleached alley, careless of the drip from
overhead, and hurrying through it came to a circular patch of thin
grass, rounded by a lofty hedge of yew-trees, in the midst of which
stood what had once been a sun-dial. It mattered little, however,
that only the stump of a gnomon was left, seeing the hedge around it
had grown to such a height in relation to the diameter of the
circle, that it was only for a very brief hour or so in the middle
of a summer's day, when, of all periods, the passage of Time seems
least to concern humanity, that it could have served to measure his
march. The spot had, indeed, a time-forsaken look, as if it lay
buried in the bosom of the past, and the present had forgotten it.

Before emerging from the alley, she slackened her pace,
half-stopped, and, stooping a little in her tucked-up skirt, threw a
bird-like glance around the opener space; then stepping into it, she
looked up to the little disc of sky, across which the clouds, their
roses already withered, sailed dim and grey once more, while behind
them the stars were beginning to recall their half-forgotten message
from regions unknown to men. A moment, and she went up to the dial,
stood there for another moment, and was on the point of turning to
leave the spot, when, as if with one great bound, a youth stood
between her and the entrance of the alley.