Here it was that Angela grew up to womanhood.

Some nine and a half years had passed from the date of the events described in the foregoing pages, when one evening Mr. Fraser bethought him that he had been indoors all day, and proposed reading till late that night, and that therefore he had better take some exercise.

A tall and somewhat nervous-looking man, with dark eyes, a sensitive mouth, and that peculiar stoop and pallor of complexion which those devoted to much study almost invariably acquire, he had “student” written on his face.  His history was a sufficiently common one.  He possessed academical abilities of a very high order, and had in his youth distinguished himself greatly at college, both as a classical and a mathematical scholar.  When quite young, he was appointed, through the influence of a relation, to his present living, where the income was good and the population very small indeed.  Freed from all necessity for exertion, he shut himself up with his books, having his little round of parish work for relaxation, and never sought to emerge from the quiet of his aimless studies to struggle for fame and place in the laborious world.  Mr. Fraser was what people call an able man thrown away.  If they had known his shy, sensitive nature a little better, they would have understood that he was infinitely more suited for the solitary and peaceful lot in life which he had chosen, than to become a unit in the turbulent and greedy crowd that is struggling through all the ages up the slippery slopes of the temple of that greatest of our gods—­Success.

There are many such men, probably you, my reader, know one or two.  With infinite labour they store up honey from the fields of knowledge, collect endless data from the statistics of science, pile up their calculations against the very stars; and all to no end.  As a rule, they do not write books; they gather the learning for the learning’s sake, and for the very love of it rejoice to count their labour lost.  And thus they go on from year to year, until the golden bowl is broken and the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the gathered knowledge sinks, or appears to sink, back to whence it came.  Alas, that one generation cannot hand on its wisdom and experience—­more especially its experience—­to another in its perfect form!  If it could, we men should soon become as gods.

It was a mild evening in the latter end of October when Mr. Fraser started on his walk.  The moon was up in the heavens as he, an hour later, made his way from the side of the lake, where he had been wandering, back to the churchyard through which he had to pass to reach the vicarage.  Just before he came to the gate, however, he was surprised, in such a solitary spot, to see a slight figure leaning against the wall opposite the place where lay the mortal remains of the old squire and his daughter-in-law, Hilda.  He stood still and watched; the figure appeared to be gazing steadily at the graves.  Presently it turned and saw him, and he recognized the great grey eyes and golden hair of little Angela Caresfoot.