On he strolled through the rain, holding the umbrella vertically over the

exposed page to keep it dry while he read. Suddenly his eye was struck

by an article. It was the review of a pamphlet by an American

astronomer, in which the author announced a conclusive discovery with

regard to variable stars.

The discovery was precisely the discovery of Swithin St. Cleeve.

Another man had forestalled his fame by a period of about six weeks.

Then the youth found that the goddess Philosophy, to whom he had vowed to

dedicate his whole life, would not in return support him through a single

hour of despair. In truth, the impishness of circumstance was newer to

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him than it would have been to a philosopher of threescore-and-ten. In a

wild wish for annihilation he flung himself down on a patch of heather

that lay a little removed from the road, and in this humid bed remained

motionless, while time passed by unheeded.

At last, from sheer misery and weariness, he fell asleep.

The March rain pelted him mercilessly, the beaded moisture from the

heavily charged locks of heath penetrated him through back and sides, and

clotted his hair to unsightly tags and tufts. When he awoke it was dark.

He thought of his grandmother, and of her possible alarm at missing him.

On attempting to rise, he found that he could hardly bend his joints, and

that his clothes were as heavy as lead from saturation. His teeth

chattering and his knees trembling he pursued his way home, where his

appearance excited great concern. He was obliged at once to retire to

bed, and the next day he was delirious from the chill.

It was about ten days after this unhappy occurrence that Lady Constantine

learnt the news, as above described, and hastened along to the homestead

in that state of anguish in which the heart is no longer under the

control of the judgment, and self-abandonment even to error, verges on

heroism.

On reaching the house in Welland Bottom the door was opened to her by old

Hannah, who wore an assiduously sorrowful look; and Lady Constantine was

shown into the large room,--so wide that the beams bent in the

middle,--where she took her seat in one of a methodic range of chairs,

beneath a portrait of the Reverend Mr. St. Cleeve, her astronomer's

erratic father.

The eight unwatered dying plants, in the row of eight flower-pots,

denoted that there was something wrong in the house. Mrs. Martin came

downstairs fretting, her wonder at beholding Lady Constantine not

altogether displacing the previous mood of grief.

'Here's a pretty kettle of fish, my lady!' she exclaimed.




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