n the barn,
      The rook is cawing on the tree,
      And in the wood the ringdove coos,
      But my false love hath fled from me.”

Abel opened the door, and looked out.  One of those small white moths known as “millers” went past him.  The night was still, - so utterly still that no sound of any sort whatever broke upon the ear.  In dead silence and loneliness stood the mill.  Even the miller-moth had gone; and a cat ran in by Abel’s legs, as if the loneliness without were too much for her.  The sky was gray.

Abel went back to the round-house, where George was struggling to fix the candlestick securely in the wall.

“Cuss the thing!” he exclaimed, whilst the skin of his face took a mottled hue that was the nearest approach he ever made to a blush.  “The tallow’ve been a dropping, Abel, my boy.  I think ’twas the wind when you opened the door, maybe.  And I’ve been a trying to fix un more firmly.  That’s all, Abel; that’s all.”

“There ain’t no signs of wind,” said Abel.  “It’s main quiet and unked too outside, Gearge.  And I do think it be like rain.  There was a miller-moth, Gearge; do that mean any thing?”

“I can’t say,” said George.  “I bean’t weatherwise myself, Abel.  But if there be no wind, there be no work, Abel; so us may go back to our larning.  Look here, my boy,” he added, as Abel reseated himself on the grain-sack which did duty as chair of instruction, and drawing, as he spoke, a letter forth to the light; “come to the candle, Abel, and see if so be thee can read this, but don’t tell any one I showed it thee, Abel.”

“Not me, Gearge,” said Abel, wa