"The love-star's allus up early o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!" "Yes,--Venus is the evening star just now," rejoined Helmsley, half-absently.
"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily.

"Where did ye git it from?
That aint no Venus,--that's just the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" Helmsley made no answer.

He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion.

But Peke's words had started the old dream of his life again into being,--the latent hope within him, which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly kindled vital fire in his mind,--and he moved as in a dream, his eyes fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star..