pebble-paving below, could not give--steepy slopes, hedge-divided
into small fields, some green and dotted with red cattle, others
crowded with shocks of bedraggled and drooping corn, which looked
suffering and patient.

The room to which the window having this prospect belonged was large
and low, with a dark floor of uncarpeted oak. It opened immediately
upon the porch, and although a good fire of logs blazed on the
hearth, was chilly to the sense of the old man, who, with his feet
on the skin of a fallow-deer, sat gazing sadly into the flames,
which shone rosy through the thin hands spread out before them. At
the opposite corner of the great low-arched chimney sat a lady past
the prime of life, but still beautiful, though the beauty was all
but merged in the loveliness that rises from the heart to the face
of such as have taken the greatest step in life--that is, as the
old proverb says, the step out of doors. She was plainly yet rather
richly dressed, in garments of an old-fashioned and well-preserved
look. Her hair was cut short above her forehead, and frizzed out in
bunches of little curls on each side. On her head was a covering of
dark stuff, like a nun's veil, which fell behind and on her
shoulders. Close round her neck was a string of amber beads, that
gave a soft harmonious light to her complexion. Her dark eyes looked
as if they found repose there, so quietly did they rest on the face
of the old man, who was plainly a clergyman. It was a small, pale,
thin, delicately and symmetrically formed face, yet not the less a
strong one, with endurance on the somewhat sad brow, and force in
the closed lips, while a good conscience looked clear out of the
grey eyes.

They had been talking about the fast-gathering tide of opinion