As he strode up the hill, with the back of his leg-line concave at the calf, instead of convex (whenever his fluttering skirt allowed a glimpse of what he never thought about), it was brought home suddenly to his ranging mind that he might be within view of Beckley. At a bend of the rising road he turned, and endwise down a plait of hills, and between soft pillowy folds of trees, the simple old church of Beckley stood, for his thoughts to make the most of it. And, to guide them, the chime of the gentle bells, foretelling of the service at three o'clock, came on the tremulous conveyance of the wind, murmuring the burden he knew so well--"old men and ancient dames, married folk and children, bachelors and maidens, all come to church!" Hardenow thought of the months he had spent, some few years back, in that quiet place; of the long, laborious, lonesome days, the solid hours divided well, the space allotted for each hard drill; then (when the pages grew dim and dark, and the bat flitted over the lattice, or the white owl sailed to the rickyard), the glory of sallying into the air, inhaling grander volumes than ever from mortal breath proceeded, and plunging into leaves that speak of one great Author only. And well he remembered in all that toil the pure delight of the Sunday; the precious balm of kicking out both legs, and turning on the pillow until eight o'clock; the leisurely breakfast with the Saturday papers, instead of Aristotle; the instructive and amusing walk to church, where everybody admired him, and he set the fashion for at least ten years; the dread of the parson that a man who was known as the best of his year at Oxford should pick out the fallacies of his old logic; and then the culminating triumph of Sabbatic jubilee--the dinner, the dinner, wherewith the whole week had been privily gestating; up to that crowning moment when Cripps, in a coat of no mean broadcloth, entered with a dish of Crippsic size, with the "trimmings" coming after him in a tray, and lifting the cover with a pant and flourish, said, "Well, sir, now, what do 'ee plaize to think of that?" Nor in this pleasant retrospect of kindness and simplicity was the element of rustic grace and beauty wholly absent--the slight young figure that flitted in and out, with quick desire to please him; the soft pretty smile with which his improvements of Beckley dialect were received; and the sweet gray eyes that filled with tears so, the day before his college met. Hardenow had feared, humble-minded as he was, that the young girl might be falling into liking him too well; and he knew that there might be on his own part too much reciprocity. Therefore (much as he loved Cripps, and fully as he allowed for all that was to be said upon every side), he had felt himself bound to take no more than a distant view of Beckley.