The sun was setting in veiled and softened light, while a transparent mist, like a silver gauze, was drawn over woods and hills and meadows. The gorgeous robe of autumn gave to the landscape an air of festivity and triumph, while the veil of mist, and the death-like silence, seemed as if happy nature had been arrested in a moment of joy, and turned into a mourner. The intense stillness pressed on the heart. No chirp of bird or hum of insect broke the deep silence. From time to time a leaf, "yellow and sere," loosened, as it were, by invisible fingers from the stem, lingered a second on its way, and fell noiselessly to the earth. In the deep distant wood, the sound of the ripe nuts as they fell, and, at long intervals, the shrill cry of the squirrel, came to the ear, and interrupted the revery of the solitary wanderer. The scene I would describe was bounded on one side by high rocks and the vast ocean, but sloping towards the land into soft and undulating beauty. A noble river was on one side, and on the promontory thus formed, were left some of the largest trees of the forest that covered the whole country when our fathers first arrived. Although so near the ocean, the scene had a character of tranquil sylvan beauty strangely contrasted with the ocean when agitated by storms. One of the largest villages of the time was on the opposite bank of the river; but, as there was no bridge, the place I would describe was almost as solitary as if man had never invaded it. The trees upon it were the largest growth of elm and oak, and seemed left to shelter a single dwelling, a house of moderate size, but which had much the appearance of neatness and comfort. A few rods from the house, and still nearer the headland, stood the plain New England meeting-house of that period,--square, barn-like, unpainted, solitary, but for the silent tenants of its grave-yard. A grass-grown path connected the church with the dwelling-house, and the overshadowing trees gave to the spot an air of protection and seclusion unknown to modern New England churches. At one of the windows of this modest dwelling, that looked towards the setting sun, which now bathed the whole scene in yellow light, was a young woman who might have seen seventeen summers. She was slightly but well formed, and, had it not been for her fresh and radiant health, she would have possessed that pensive, poetic expression that painters love. She was not indeed beautiful, but hers was one of those countenances in which we think we recall a thousand histories,--histories of the inward life of the soul,--not the struggles of the passions; for the dove seemed visibly to rest in the deep blue liquid eye, brooding on its own secret fancies.