Two days after this three old maids made an excursion to the village of Covedale, and lo! the cottage in question was shut up--the woman and the child were gone. The people in the village knew nothing about them--had seen nothing particular in the woman or child--had always supposed them mother and daughter; and the gentleman identified by the clerical inquisitor with the banker had never but once been observed in the place. "The vile old parson," said the eldest of the old maids, "to take away so good a man's character!--and the fly will cost one pound two, with the baiting!" CHAPTER VI. "In this disposition was I, when looking out of my window one day to take the air, I perceived a kind of peasant who looked at me very attentively."--GIL BLAS. A SUMMER'S evening in a retired country town has something melancholy in it. You have the streets of a metropolis without their animated bustle--you have the stillness of the country without its birds and flowers. The reader will please to bring before him a quiet street in the quiet country town of C------, in a quiet evening in quiet June; the picture is not mirthful--two young dogs are playing in the street, one old dog is watching by a newly-painted door. A few ladies of middle age move noiselessly along the pavement, returning home to tea: they wear white muslin dresses, green spencers a little faded, straw poke bonnets with green or coffee-coloured gauze veils. By twos and threes they have disappeared within the thresholds of small neat houses, with little railings, inclosing little green plots. Threshold, house, railing, and plot, each as like to the other as are those small commodities called "nest-tables," which, "even as a broken mirror multiplies," summon to the bewildered eye countless iterations of one four-legged individual. Paradise Place was a set of nest houses. A cow had passed through the streets with a milkwoman behind; two young and gay shopmen "looking after the gals," had reconnoitred the street, and vanished in despair. The twilight advanced--but gently; and though a star or two were up, the air was still clear. At the open window of one of the tenements in this street sat Alice Darvil. She had been working (that pretty excuse to women for thinking), and as the thoughts grew upon her, and the evening waned, the work had fallen upon her knee, and her hands dropped mechanically on her lap. Her profile was turned towards the street; but without moving her head or changing her attitude, her eyes glanced from time to time to her little girl, who nestled on the ground beside her, tired with play; and wondering, perhaps, why she was not already in bed, seemed as tranquil as the young mother herself. And sometimes Alice's eyes filled with tears--and then she sighed, as if to sigh the tears away. But poor Alice, if she grieved, hers was now a silent and a patient grief.