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The man who played the disturbing part in the two quiet lives hereafter depicted—no great man, In any sense, by-the-way—first had knowledge of them on an October evening in the city of Melchester. He had been standing in the close, vainly endeavoring to gain amid the darkness s glimpse of the most homogeneous pile of mediaval architecture in England, which towered and tapered from the damp and level sward in front of him. While he stood the presence of the cathedral walls was revealed rather by the ear than by the eyes; he could not see them, but they reflected sharply a roar of sound which entered the close by a street leading from the city square, and, falling upon the building, was flung back upon him.

He postponed till the morrow his attempt to examine the deserted edifice, and turned his attention to the noise. It was compounded of steam barrel-organs, the clanging of gongs, the ringing of hand-bells, the clack of rattles, and the undistinguishable shouts of men. A lurid light hung in the sir in the direction of the tomult. Thitherward he went, passing under the arched gateway, along a straight street, and into the square.

He might have searched Europe over for a greater