AND RUE. ROSE AND CHAPTER I. THE DARKNESS THAT MAKETH AFRAID. ARK!" exclaimed Tryphena Fowke, one Saturday evening in September, 1821, the year that George the Fourth was crowned, that Napoleon died -"what was that?" "It sounded like a gun being fired," replied the person appealed to, a middle-aged woman of staid, and even severe aspect, who was engaged in stoning damsons at a table near the window-the creeper-framed lattice window of the kitchen at Shobdon Grange. "But it is too late for any one to be out shooting now!" argued Tryphena, glancing at VOL. I. 1 1 the eight-day clock which stood in the corner by the door-a solemn, white-faced clock, surmounted by a skeleton in the act of mowing; "I can scarcely see to work." The nights do draw in, I grant!" answered the severe-looking woman, with reluctance, as if she felt personally aggrieved thereby; "you'd better get a light." "No, thank you," said the girl, meekly, rethreading her darning needle with patient assiduity. "I dare say I shall be able to finish these stockings! Father would call it waste to have candles burning at half-past seven !" "Your father knows the cost of things!" returned the severe-looking woman, severely. "He has to pay for them!" To this remark Tryphena vouchsafed no answer. Indeed, no answer seemed to be required; moreover, such energies as she had at her command were centred in the act of vision. Wherefore, her companion being little given to superfluous speech, they relapsed into silence, and the old clock, the smouldering, cracking logs on the hearth, and the asthmatic pointer stretched before |