The air was still.  The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon, and the frosty stars blinked brightly.  Everyone knows the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened.  Fancies and regrets float mistily in the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance.  As my eyes rested on those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which formed the background of the picture, my thoughts recurred to my father’s mysterious intimations and the image of the approaching visitor; and the thought of the unknown journey saddened me.

In all that concerned his religion, from very early association, there was to me something of the unearthly and spectral.

When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I remember, two days before the funeral, there came to Knowl, where she died, a thin little man, with large black eyes, and a very grave, dark face.

He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in deep affliction; and Mrs. Rusk used to say, ’It is rather odd to see him praying with that little scarecrow from London, and good Mr. Clay ready at call, in the village; much good that little black whipper-snapper will do him!’

With that little black man, on the day after the funeral, I was sent out, for some reason, for a walk; my governess was ill, I know, and there was confusion in the house, and I dare say the maids made as much of a holiday as they could.

I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man; but I was not afraid of him, for he was gentle, though sad—­and seemed kind.  He led me into the garden—­the Dutch garden, we used to call it—­with a balustrade, and statues at the farther front, laid out in a carpet-pattern of brilliantly-coloured flowers.  We came down the broad flight of Caen stone steps into this, and we walked in silence to the balustrade.  The base was too high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over; but holding my hand, he said, ’Look through that, my child.  Well, you can’t; but I can see beyond it—­shall I tell you what?  I see ever so much.  I see a cottage with a steep roof, that looks like gold in the sunlight; there are tall trees throwing soft shadows round it, and flowering shrubs, I can’t say what, only the colours are beautiful, growing by the walls and windows, and two little children are playing among the stems of the trees, and we are on our way there, and in a few minutes shall be under those trees ourselves, and talking to those little children.  Yet now to me it is but a picture in my brain, and to you but a story told by me, which you believe.  Come, dear; let us be going.’

So we descended the steps at the right, and side by side walked along the grass lane between tall trim walls of evergreens.  The way was in deep shadow, for the sun was near the horizon; but suddenly we turned to the left, and there we stood in rich sunlight, among the many objects he had described.