The elderly man now entered the little porch, over which clambered honeysuckle and ivy intertwined, and ushered Kenelm into a pleasant parlour, with a bay window, and an equally pleasant bedroom behind it. “Will it do, sir?” “Perfectly. I take it from this moment. My knapsack contains all I shall need for the night. There is a portmanteau of mine at Mr. Somers’s shop, which can be sent here in the morning.” “But we have not settled about the terms,” said the elderly man, beginning to feel rather doubtful whether he ought thus to have installed in his home a stalwart pedestrian of whom he knew nothing, and who, though talking glibly enough on other things, had preserved an ominous silence on the subject of payment. “Terms? true, name them.” “Including board?” “Certainly. Chameleons live on air; democrats on wind bags. I have a more vulgar appetite, and require mutton.” “Meat is very dear now-a-days,” said the elderly man, “and I am afraid, for board and lodging I cannot charge you less than L3 3s.,--say L3 a week. My lodgers usually pay a week in advance.” “Agreed,” said Kenelm, extracting three sovereigns from his purse. “I have dined already: I want nothing more this evening; let me detain you no further. Be kind enough to shut the door after you.” When he was alone, Kenelm seated himself in the recess of the bay window, against the casement, and looked forth intently. Yes; he was right: he could see from thence the home of Lily. Not, indeed, more than a white gleam of the house through the interstices of trees and shrubs, but the gentle lawn sloping to the brook, with the great willow at the end dipping its boughs into the water, and shutting out all view beyond itself by its bower of tender leaves. The young man bent his face on his hands and mused dreamily: the evening deepened; the stars came forth; the rays of the moon now peered aslant through the arching dips of the willow, silvering their way as they stole to the waves below. “Shall I bring lights, sir? or do you prefer a lamp or candles?” asked a voice behind,--the voice of the elderly man’s wife. “Do you like the shutters closed?” The question startled the dreamer. They seemed mocking his own old mockings on the romance of love. Lamp or candles, practical lights for prosaic eyes, and shutters closed against moon and stars! “Thank you, ma’am, not yet,” he said; and rising quietly he placed his hand on the window-sill, swung himself through the open casement, and passed slowly along the margin of the rivulet, by a path checkered alternately with shade and starlight; the moon yet more slowly rising above the willows, and lengthening its track along the wavelets. CHAPTER III.