ittle valley below. A gentle
breeze, however, now arose, as the sun was about descending; and while
I remained standing on the brow of the slope, the fog gradually became
dissipated into wreaths, and so floated over the scene.

As it came fully into view--thus gradually as I describe it--piece by
piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of water, and here again the summit
of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying that the whole was one of
the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited under the name of "vanishing
pictures."

By the time, however, that the fog had thoroughly disappeared, the sun
had made its way down behind the gentle hills, and thence, as it with
a slight chassez to the south, had come again fully into sight, glaring
with a purplish lustre through a chasm that entered the valley from the
west. Suddenly, therefore--and as if by the hand of magic--this whole
valley and every thing in it became brilliantly visible.

The first coup d'oeil, as the sun slid into the position described,
impressed me very much as I have been impressed, when a boy, by
the concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical spectacle or
melodrama. Not even the monstrosity of color was wanting; for the
sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all orange and purple; while
the vivid green of the grass in the valley was reflected more or less
upon all objects from the curtain of vapor that still hung overhead,
as if loth to take its total departure from a scene so enchantingly
beautiful.

The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the fog canopy
could not have been more than four hundred yards long; while in breadth
it varied from fifty to one hundred and fifty or perhaps two hundred.
It was most narrow at its northern extremity, opening out as it tended
southwardly, but with no very precise regularity. The widest portion
was within eighty yards of the southern extreme. The slopes which
encompassed the vale could not fairly be called hills, unless at their
northern face. Here a precipitous ledge of granite arose to a height of
some ninety feet; and, as I have mentioned, the valley at this point was
not more than fifty feet wide; but as the visiter proceeded southwardly
from the cliff, he found on his right hand and on his left, declivities
at once less high, less precipitous, and less rocky. All, in a word,
sloped and softened to the south; and yet the whole vale was engirdled
by eminences, more or less high, except at