A warm summer evening, with a sultry haze brooding over the level landscape, and a Sabbathstillness upon all things in the village of Lidford, Midlandshire. In the remoter corners of the oldgothic church the shadows are beginning to gather, as the sermon draws near its close; but in thecentre aisle and about the pulpit there is broad daylight still shining-in from the wide westernwindow, across the lower half of which there are tall figures of the Evangelists in old stained glass.There are no choristers at Lidford, and the evening service is conducted in rather a drowsy way;but there is a solemn air of repose about the gray old church that should be conducive to tranquilthoughts and pious meditations. Simple and earnest have been the words of the sermon, simple andearnest seem the countenances of the congregation, looking reverently upwards at the face of theirpastor; and one might fancy, contemplating that grand old church, so much too spacious for theneeds of the little flock gathered there to-night, that Lidford was a forgotten, half-deserted corner ofthis earth, in which a man, tired of the press and turmoil of the world, might find an almostmonastic solitude and calm.