CHAPTER I.
A WATCHER OF LILIES.
"Unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."—Collect, English Communion Service.
In one of the south-western counties of England, some years ago, and in a deep, well-wooded valley where men made perry and cider, wandered little and read less, there was a hamlet with neither farm nor cottage in it, that had not stood two hundred and fifty years, and just beyond there...
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