Dew of the morning in a moss-rose bud, crystal drops beading a frond of fern, lustre of a fountain in full moonlight--none of these seem to me fit to compare with the limpid beauty of that voice. And more than the sweetest sounds can do, that indite of things beyond us, and fall from a sphere where no man dwells, this voice came home to my heart, and filled it with a vivid sorrow and a vague delight. Sturdy as I was, and robust, and hardy, and apt to laugh at all sentimental stuff, the force of the time overcame me, as if I had never been educated; and as soon as I rather felt than knew that I was listening to some simple hymn, I became almost as a little child inhaling his first ideas of God. The words that fell upon my ears so softly were as unknown as the tune itself, voice and verse and air combining into a harmony of heaven. Ought any man to be called a snob, for doing a thing that is below himself, on the impulse of the moment, and without a halt of thought? It is not for me to argue that; but I hope that fair ladies will forgive me, when I confess that I stepped very gently, avoiding every dry twig and stone, across the brown hollow that is generally found at the foot of any steep fall of wood. By this time the lane was gone to grass, and I slipped Old Joe's bit that he might have a graze, while I went in quest of my Siren. On the further brink of the spongy trough, a dark frizzle of alder and close brushwood was overhanging a bright swift stream, which I recognised as the Pebblebourne, a copious brook, beloved of trout, and as yet little harassed by anglers. Through this dark screen I peered, and beheld a vision that amazed me. Along a fair meadow that bent towards the west, and offered a slim tree here and there--like a walking-stick for evening--the gentle light of day's departure came quite horizontally. There was, as there often is in nature, some deep peace of sadness, which rebukes mankind for its petty cares, and perpetual fuss about itself. And yet there was something in front of all this, to set the heart of a young man fluttering. On the opposite bank, and within fair distance for the eyes to make out everything, was a niche of dark wall shagged with ivy, and still supporting the grey stonework of a ruined chapel-window, between whose jagged mullions flowed the silvery light of the west and fell upon the face of a kneeling maiden. The profile, as perfect as that of a statue, yet with the tender curves of youth, more like the softness of a cameo, was outlined as in a frame of light against the black curtain of the ivied wall. Beside the kneeling figure lay a head-tire of some strange design, removed perhaps when the hymn was followed by the attitude of prayer.