Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having fallenfrom its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front of the oldparsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash trees. It was now atwelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its lastinhabitant, had turned from that gateway towards the village burying-ground.The wheel-track leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of theavenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two orthree vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to pick upalong the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between thedoor of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, seenthrough which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the materialworld. Certainly it had little in common with those ordinary abodes which standso imminent upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were,into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of passingtravellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In itsnear retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the very spot for theresidence of a clergyman,—a man not estranged from human life, yetenveloped, in the midst of it, with