any living man
except her heart's own--her affianced--"her beautiful!"--her lost!

Such were the feelings under whose influence our humble heroine pursued
her mountain journey, of a few miles, to the place of meeting with her
parents; and it was probably beneath the roof of the lone cottage in the
cloud that, under the same morbid mood of mind, she penned a letter to
Mr Fitzarthur, which was afterwards discovered, dated at top "My Wedding
Day," containing a passionate appeal on behalf of her father, for a bond
of legal indemnification to be executed before night, as a present which
she had set her heart on giving her father, as a bridal one, _that very
day_. Arrived at the house fitted up for the hated supplanter of her
father, "Lewis the Spy," her heart beat so violently before she could
firm her nerves to ring the bell, that she stood leaning some time
against the wall. This old house was now almost rebuilt, and not without
regard to rural beauty, in harmony with the fine scenery of an antique
park, with its mossy ivied remains of walls and venerable trees
overshadowing it, and was called "The Little Hall of the Park." She
sighed deeply as she glanced at its comfortable aspect, remembering how
long it had formed the secret object of her mother's little ambition
(for the dame had a touch of pride in her composition beyond her
ever-contented mate) to occupy that _little_ hall. It seemed so
appropriate that the lesser squire--the _great_ squire's friend--should
also have _his_ "hall," though a little one!

Indeed, it had been in incipient repair for him, that the old men might
spend their winter evenings together at the real hall, divided but by a
short path, across an angle of the park, without a dreary walk for Bevan
impending over the end of their carouse, with never-wearied
reminiscences of their boyhood--when sudden death stopped all
proceedings, and left poor Bevan alone in the world, as it seemed to
him--"in simplicity a child," and as imbecile in conflict with it as any
child.

She nerved her mind and hand by an effort, and rang the bell--(the
_bell_, there a modern innovation.) No sound but its own distant
deadened one, was heard within; but some dog in the rear barked, and
then howled, as if alarmed at the sudden breach of long prevailing
silence. Again she rang--again the troubled growl and bark, suppressed
by fear of the only living thing, as it seemed, within hearing, alone
responded. The situation was v