It was evening: the lower limb of the large round sun rested on a dark line of trees which filled up one of the slopes of the ground about six miles off; and above the bright and glowing disc, which seemed to float in a sea of its own glory, were stretched a few small dark clouds, edged with gold, which hung over the descending star like a veil thrown back to afford one last look of the bright orb of day before the reign of night began. Higher still, the sky was blushing like a bride; and woods and fields, and distant spires and hills, all seemed penetrated with the purple splendour of the hour. Nothing could be fairer or more peaceful than the whole scene, and it was scarcely possible to suppose that the violent passions of man could remain untamed and unchastened by the aspect of so much bright tranquillity. Winding along at the foot of the hill, and marking the commencement of what might be called the plain--though, to say the truth, the wide space to which we must give that name was broken by innumerable undulations--appeared a hard but sandy road, from which a carriage-way led by a circuit up to the mansion. In some places high banks, covered with shrubs and bushes, overhung the course of the road, though in others it passed unsheltered over the soft, short grass of the hill; but just at the angle where the two paths separated, the ground rose almost to a cliff, and at the bottom was a spring of very clear water gathered into a little stone basin. By the side of the fountain, at the time we speak of, sat a figure which harmonised well with the landscape. It was that of a young girl, not yet apparently sixteen years of age. Her garb appeared to be that of poverty, her head uncovered by anything but rich and waving locks of warm brown hair, her face and neck tanned with the sun, her feet bare, as well as her hands and her arms above the elbows, and her apparel scanty, and in some places torn, though scrupulously clean. She seemed, in short, a beggar, and many a one would have passed her by as such without notice; but those who looked nearer saw that her features were very beautiful, her teeth of a dazzling whiteness, her limbs rounded and well formed, and her blue eyes under their long jetty eyelashes as bright, yet soft, as ever beamed on mortal man. Yet there was something wanting in her face, an indefinable something, not exactly intellect, for there was often a keen and flashing light spread over the whole countenance. Neither was it expression, for of that there was a great deal. Neither was it steadiness, for there frequently came a look of deep thought, painfully deep, intense, abstracted, unsatisfied, as if the mind sought something within itself that it could not discover. What it was it is difficult, nay, impossible to say; yet there was something wanting, and all those who looked upon her felt that it was so.