One event tended to hasten this resolution. The attorney in whose office Alonzo was clerk, received a commission in the new raised American army, and marched to the lines near Boston. His business was therefore suspended, and Alonzo returned to the house of his father. He considered that he could not long remain a mere spectator of the contest, and that it might soon be his duty to take the field; he therefore concluded it best to hasten his marriage with Melissa. She consented to the proposition, and their parents made the necessary arrangements for the event. They had even fixed upon the place which was to be the future residence of this happy couple. It was a pleasantly situated village, surrounded by rugged elevations, which gave an air of serenity and seclusion to the valley they encircled. On the south arose a spacious hill, which was ascended by a gradual acclivity; its sides and summit interspersed with orchards, arbours, and cultivated fields. On the west, forests unevenly lifted their rude heads, with here and there a solitary field, newly cleared, and thinly scattered with cottages. To the east, the eye extended over a soil, at one time swelling into craggy elevations, and at another spreading itself into vales of the most enchanting verdure. To the north it extended over a vast succession of mountains, wooded to their summits, and throwing their shadows over intervales of equal wilderness, till at length it was arrested in its excursions by the blue mists which hovered over mountains more grand, majestic and lofty.[A] A rivulet which rushed from the hills, formed a little lake on the borders of the village, which beautifully reflected the cottages from its transparent bosom. Amidst a cluster of locusts and weeping willows, rose the spire of the church, in the ungarnished decency of Sunday neatness. Fields, gardens, meadows, and pastures were spread around the valley, and on the sides of the declivities, yielding in their season the rich flowers, fruits and foliage of spring, summer and autumn. The inhabitants of this modern Auvernum were mostly farmers. They were mild, sociable, moral and diligent. The produce of their own flocks and fields gave them most of their food and clothing. To dissipation they were strangers, and the luxuries of their tables were few. [Footnote A: Some who read this description will readily recognize the village here described.]