I do not, however, believe that this latter class of feelings is ever roused by nature herself, except where she has been distorted, or in some way interfered with. Even in her gloomiest and wildest aspects, the impression she makes upon us is of awe, but never horror; of melancholy, but never revulsion of pain, in some mysterious way so far transcending pleasure, as to be, to my thinking, the most exquisite of all such sensations. In a half-dreamy, half-pensive mood sat Marion, this dull September afternoon, in the ugly, dingy old French diligence, intently gazing as if it fascinated her, on the far stretch of grim, brown waste all round; the rain dripping and drizzling, and the poor tired horses patiently splashing on through the mud, now and then encouraged by the queer outlandish cries of the driver. At last, the girl glanced round at her companions. Both fast asleep. There was nothing else to do, so she again betook herself to the window, and yielded to the gloomy fascination of the moor and the rain. It began, at last, to seem that her whole life had been spent thus, that everything else was a dream, and the only realities were the great trackless desert, and the diligence rumbling on for ever, where to and where from she seemed neither to know nor care. Then, I suppose, she must have fallen into a doze, or perhaps asleep outright. However this was, she must have shut her eyes for some time, for when she next was conscious of using them, all was changed. Still the wide-stretching moor all round; but no longer brown and grim, it now appeared a field of lovely shades of colour; for far away at the horizon, the beautiful sun was setting in many-hued radiance, and the rain had all cleared away, except a few laggard drops still falling softly, each a miniature rainbow as it came. Marion watched till the sun was gone. Then the golden light grew softer and paler, the clouds melted from crimson and rose, to the faintest blush, and at last all merged in a silvery greyness, which in its turn gradually deepened again to the dark, even blue of a cloudless night. And one by one the stars came out, each in its accustomed place; all the old friends whom Marion had first learnt to call by name from the windows of the little cottage at Brackley. Somehow the strangeness and the loneliness seemed to leave her as she saw them, and a feeling of tranquil happiness stole over her. But this solitary evening in the old diligence was never forgotten, for it became to her one of those milestones in life, little noticed in passing, but plainly seen on looking back.