Janet's Love and Service

Excerpt

The longest day in all the year was slowly closing over the little village of Clayton. There were no loiterers now at the corners of the streets or on the village square—it was too late for that, though daylight still lingered. Now and then the silence was broken by the footsteps of some late home-comer, and over more than one narrow close, the sound of boyish voices went and came, from garret to garret, telling that the spirit of slumber had not yet taken possession of the place. But these soon ceased. The wind moved the tall laburnums in the lane without a sound, and the murmur of running water alone broke the stillness, as the gurgle of the burn, and the rush of the distant mill-dam met and mingled in the air of the summer night.