The Virgin in Judgment

s of Ringmoor Down lay clad at this season in a wan integument of dead grass. Colourless as water, it simulated that element and

without ceasing here on the bosom of a plastic earth. Only the primary forces model with such splendid economy of design, or present achievements so unadorned, yet so complete. The marvel of Ringmoor demanded unnumbered centuries of elemental collaboration before it spread, consummate and accomplished, under men's eyes. Rage of solar

hills beyond; their dark, rocky places full of story; their porphyry pinnacles and precipices haunted by the legends and the spirits of old strike not so deeply into human sense as Ringmoor's vast monochrome

t noon or night are one; its highways are their highways, and indifferently they move upon its bosom with the other ephemeral existences that haunt it. Yet by none of these people is Ringmoor truly felt or truly seen. Cultured minds weave p

hed grass-stem, of many millions that clad the waste, reflected the sky and paled its little lamp as the heavens paled. Then sobriety of dusk eliminated even

rough a telescope, divided and revealed a brace of animals, one of which staggered slowly on four legs, while the other went on two. A man led a horse by a halter; and the horse was old and black, bent, broken

ourn for beasts that had ceased to possess any living value. Through extinction only they served their masters for the la

n. "There ban't much

man sighed because he was very weary. Then from the fringe of night sprang young life and met this forlorn procession. A tall girl appea

sworthy?" asked the trave

pretty tired and came to shorten your journey--th

and never older

oot. She was tall and straight, but in the murk one could see no m

the money?"

en shil

h a voice uncommon de

twe

N

d that indicated disapp

rice of th

rothers will bring it back to yo

r. Then he brought a little leathern purse fro

ur faither didn

N

man. Good-n

rice for a dead h

of twelve years parted for ever. The girl took her way with the old

ssed, and then he stopped where a star twinkled above the gloomy summits of spruce firs. Beneath them there peered out a thatched cottage, but no light

ht to have

cross the forest and seeme