g the
arrangement than that likely to result to a timid girl, of secluded
habits, from the immediate prospect of taking up her abode for the first
time in her life among total strangers. Previous to leaving my home,
which I felt I should do with a heavy heart, I received a most tender
and affectionate letter from my uncle, calculated, if anything could do
so, to remove the bitterness of parting from scenes familiar and dear
from my earliest childhood, and in some degree to reconcile me to the
measure.

It was during a fine autumn that I approached the old domain of
Carrickleigh. I shall not soon forget the impression of sadness and
of gloom which all that I saw produced upon my mind; the sunbeams were
falling with a rich and melancholy tint upon the fine old trees, which
stood in lordly groups, casting their long, sweeping shadows over rock
and sward. There was an air of neglect and decay about the spot, which
amounted almost to desolation; the symptoms of this increased in number
as we approached the building itself, near which the ground had been
originally more artificially and carefully cultivated than elsewhere,
and whose neglect consequently more immediately and strikingly betrayed
itself.

As we proceeded, the road wound near the beds of what had been formally
two fish-ponds, which were now nothing more than stagnant swamps,
overgrown with rank weeds, and here and there encroached upon by the
straggling underwood; the avenue itself was much broken, and in many
places the stones were almost concealed by grass and nettles; the loose
stone walls which had here and there intersected the broad park were,
in many places, broken down, so as no longer to answer their original
purpose as fences; piers were now and then to be seen, but the gates
were gone; and, to add to the general air of dilapidation, some huge
trunks were lying scattered through the venerable old trees, either the
work of the winter storms, or perhaps the victims of some extensive but
desultory scheme of denudation, which the projector had not capital or
perseverance to carry into full effect.

After the carriage had travelled a mile of this avenue, we reached the
summit of rather an abrupt eminence, one of the many which added to the
picturesqueness, if not to the convenience of this rude passage. From
the top of this ridge the grey walls of Carrickleigh were visible,
rising at a small distance in front, and darkened by the hoary
wood which crowded