XXXVIII. THE POLLARD-TREES XXXIX. THUS FAR THE MILES ARE MEASURED FROM THY FRIEND XL. UNDER THE CLOCK-TOWER XLI. I BRING YOU THREE LETTERS--I PRAY YOU READ ONE XLII. RACHEL XLIII. CRAGS AND FRESH AIR XLIV. WHITE WITH GAZING XLV. WHAT AUNT SARAH LEFT FOR DOLLY XLVI. THE SORROWFUL MESSAGE XLVII. FROM HEART OF VERY HEART XLVIII. AN EXPLANATION XLIX. SHEEP-SHEARING L. TEMPERED WINDS LI. 'SING HOARSE, WITH TEARS BETWEEN' LII. AN ANDANTE OF HAYDN'S LIII. THAT THOU ART BLAMED SHALL NOT BE THY DEFECT LIV. HOLY ST. FRANCIS, WHAT A CHANGE IS HERE! LV. SEE YOU NOT SOMETHING BESIDE MASONRY? LVI. THE PLAY IS PLAYED, THE CURTAIN DROPS OLD KENSINGTON. CHAPTER I. BRICKS AND IVY. From the ivy where it dapples A grey ruin, stone by stone, Do you look for grapes and apples, Or for sad green leaves alone? --E. B. Browning. A quarter of a century ago the shabby tide of progress had not spread to the quiet old suburb where Lady Sarah Francis's house was standing, with its many windows dazzling as the sun travelled across the old-fashioned house-tops to set into a distant sea of tenements and echoing life. The roar did not reach the old house. The children could listen to the cawing of the rooks, to the echo of the hours, as they struck on from one day to another, vibrating from the old square tower of the church. At night the strokes seemed to ring more slowly than in the day. Little Dolly Vanborough, Lady Sarah's niece, thought each special hour had its voice. The church clock is silent now, but the rooks caw on undisturbed from one spring to another in the Old Kensington suburb. There are tranquil corners still, and sunny silent nooks, and ivy wreaths growing in the western sun; and jessamines and vine-trees, planted by a former generation, spreading along the old garden-walls. But every year the shabby stream of progress rises and engulfs one relic or another, carrying off many and many a landmark and memory. Last year only, the old church was standing, in its iron cage, at the junction of the thoroughfares. It was the Church of England itself to Dolly and George Vanborough in those early church-going days of theirs. There was the old painting of the lion and the unicorn hanging from the gallery; the light streaming through the brown saints over the communion-table. In after-life the children may have seen other saints more glorious in crimson and in purple, nobler piles and arches, but none of them have ever seemed so near to heaven as the old Queen Anne building; and the wooden pew with its high stools, through which elbows of straw were protruding, where they used to kneel on either side of their aunt, watching with awe-stricken faces the tears as they came falling from the widow's sad eyes.