But I must not anticipate, nor overrun my scent, meriting, like a babbling hound, the harsh thong of the huntsman critic. It was, as I have said already, somewhere in the summer wherefrom Annabel reckoned her twentieth, and Marian her nineteenth year—very late in the last month of summer, an hour or two before the sunset of as beautiful an evening as ever smiled upon the face of the green earth; the sky was nearly cloudless, though a thin gauze-like haze had floated up from the horizon, and so far veiled the orb of the great sun, that the eye could gaze undazzled on his glories; and the whole air was full of a rich golden light which flooded all the level meadows with its lustre,—except where they were checkered by the long cool blue shadows, projected from the massive clumps of noble forest trees, which singly or in groups diversified the lovely vale—and gilded the tall slender steeple of the old village church, and glanced in living fire from the broad oriel windows of the Hall. Such was the evening, and so beautiful the prospect, with every sound and sight in perfect harmony—the sharp squeak of the rapid swifts wheeling their airy circles around the distant spire, the full and liquid melodies of thrush and blackbird from out the thorn bushes upon the lawn, the lowing of the cows returning from their pasture to pay the evening tribute, the very cawing of the homeward rooks blended by distance into a continuous and soothing murmur, the rippling music of the stream, the low sigh of the west wind in the foliage of the sycamores, the far shout of the children happy at their release from school, the carol of a solitary milkmaid, combining to make up music as sweet as can be heard or dreamed of. That lovely picture was surveyed, and that delicious melody was listened to by eyes and ears well fitted to appreciate their loveliness—for at an open casement of a neat parlor in the Hall, with furniture all covered with those elegant appliances of female industry—well-filled drawings, and books, and instruments of music, and work baskets, and frames for embroidery—which show so pleasantly that the apartment is one, not of show, but of calm home enjoyment, sat Annabel, alone—for the presence of the frail paralytic being, who dozed in her arm-chair at the farther end of the room, cannot be held to constitute society. Marian, for the first time in her life, was absent from her home on a visit, which had already endured nearly six weeks, to the only near relative of the family who was yet living—a younger sister of her mother—who had married many years ago a clergyman, whose piety and talents had raised him to a stall in the cathedral church of York, where he resided with his wife—a childless couple. This worthy pair had passed a portion of the summer at the Hall, and, when returning to the metropolis of the county, had prevailed on their younger niece, not altogether without difficulty, to go with them for a few weeks, and see a little of society