"Good-bye, Abby," I said; and I kissed her as I had kissed her mistress. "Well, to be sure!" she exclaimed; but Cornelius only smiled, took my hand, and led me away. For a while we followed the road that led to Ryde, and passed by Rock Cottage; but suddenly leaving to our right my old home and the sea, we turned down a lonely lane on our left. Dusk had set in, and our way lay through solitary fields, fenced in by hedges and dark spectral trees, behind which shone the full moon, looking large and red in the thick haze of evening mists. We met no one; and of cottage, farm, or homestead, howsoever lonely, token there seemed none. A sombre indefinite line, like the summit of some ancient forest, rose against the dark sky, and bounded the horizon before us. I looked in vain for the hills of Ryde. I turned to Cornelius to question him; but he seemed so abstracted that I did not dare to speak. We walked on silently. A quarter of an hour brought us to the end of the lane, which terminated in a high brick wall, overshadowed by tall trees for a considerable distance. Through a massive iron gate, guarded by a dilapidated-looking lodge, we caught a glimpse of a long avenue, at the end of which burned a solitary light. Cornelius rang a bell; a surly-looking porter came out of the lodge, opened the gate, locked it when we were within, pointed to the right, then re-entered the lodge,--the whole without uttering a word. The avenue which we now followed, extended through a dreary-looking park, and ended with two old iron lamp-posts, one extinguished, broken, and lying on the ground half hidden by rank weeds, the other still standing and bearing its lantern of tarnished glass, in which the flame burned dimly. The two had once formed an entrance to a square court, with a ruined stone fountain in the centre, and beyond it an old brick Elizabethan mansion, on which the pale moonlight now fell. Heavy, brown with age, dark with ivy, it rested with a wearied air on a low and massive arcade. It faced the avenue, and was sheltered behind by a grove of yews and cypresses that rose solemn and motionless, giving it an aspect both sombre and funereal. No light came from the closed windows; the whole place looked as dark and silent as any ruin. We crossed the court, and Cornelius knocked at the front door, which projected slightly from both house and arcade. "Do you live here?" I asked. "No, child; surely you know I live in London with my sister Kate!" As he spoke, a small slipshod servant-girl unbarred and partly opened the door. She held a tallow-candle in one hand; the other kept the door ajar. Through the opening she showed us the half of a round and astonished face. "Mr. Thornton--" began Cornelius. "He won't see you," she interrupted, and attempted to shut the door, but this Cornelius prevented by interposing his hand. "I am come on business," he said.