not."

_Thursday, May 6th._--Thus Middleton was established in a singular way
among these old men, in one of the surroundings most unlike anything in
his own country. So old it was that it seemed to him the freshest and
newest thing that he had ever met with. The residence was made infinitely
the more interesting to him by the sense that he was near the place--as
all the indications warned him--which he sought, whither his dreams had
tended from his childhood; that he could wander each day round the park
within which were the old gables of what he believed was his hereditary
home. He had never known anything like the dreamy enjoyment of these
days; so quiet, such a contrast to the turbulent life from which he had
escaped across the sea. And here he set himself, still with that sense of
shadowiness in what he saw and in what he did, in making all the
researches possible to him, about the neighborhood; visiting every little
church that raised its square battlemented Norman tower of gray stone,
for several miles round about; making himself acquainted with each little
village and hamlet that surrounded these churches, clustering about the
graves of those who had dwelt in the same cottages aforetime. He visited
all the towns within a dozen miles; and probably there were few of the
inhabitants who had so good an acquaintance with the neighborhood as this
native American attained within a few weeks after his coming thither.

In course of these excursions he had several times met with a young
woman,--a young lady, one might term her, but in fact he was in some
doubt what rank she might hold, in England,--who happened to be wandering
about the country with a singular freedom. She was always alone, always
on foot; he would see her sketching some picturesque old church, some
ivied ruin, some fine drooping elm. She was a slight figure, much more so
than English women generally are; and, though healthy of aspect, had not