Within, the scenery was very beautiful, though still impressed with the same character of loneliness, and almost weighing on the spirits by its unnatural and almost awful silence and repose. The glen expanded rapidly, sloping from the park palings downward toward the mansion, but so thick were the woods on either slope and in the bottom, that nothing could be distinguished in the foreground but the huge trunks of the giant oaks and beeches, with the tall lady fern growing in rank luxuriance under them, nor any thing in the distance but the twilight foliage of their heads, as they descended rank below rank in the great amphitheatre. Even at this early hour, indeed, that deeply wooded dell would have already been as dark as midnight, save that adown its centre there ran a chain of long, narrow, shallow fish-ponds, each raised by a dam above that next below it, until they reached the level bottom-ground; all overarched, it is true, with shadowy branches, but all reflecting the last western gleam which stole in through the arch of leaves, dark as the portal of some gothic aisle, through which the eye caught a glimpse of a smooth grassy lawn, glimmering in the dewy twilight. Between the young man and the head of this chain of ponds there lay a belt of thick alders, with here and there a stunted willow, fringing the margin of the brook which fed them, and separating it from the path which gave access to them from above, and to the lawn below, and thence to the gardens and the Hall. Along this path he now bounded with a fleet and impatient step, as if anxious to discover something which might be hidden from his eye by its leafy barrier; a few paces brought him to the termination of the brake, and to a large clear tank, immediately beyond it, fed by the brook, and itself the feeder of the calm pools below. It was perhaps three yards in length, by two in breadth, walled on all sides with solid masonry, and partly covered at the head over the inlet of the stream by a groined arch of stone-work; on every side the ground sloped down to it, covered with deep rank grass; and above it six or seven enormous elm trees shadowed it with a constant gloom. The water within was as transparent as glass, showing the sandy bottom in all parts, though of extraordinary depth, with the pure cold springs boiling up from a dozen little whirlpools, and sending their trains of sparkling bubbles, like the tails of so many comets, through the limpid darkness of the pool. And here, once more, the young man paused, and gazed anxiously about him, and down the walk toward the quiet lawn. Then seeing that he was alone, and that there was no person in sight, even at a distance, he cast himself down on the turf at the foot of one of the great elms, where the shadows would conceal him from any casual observer’s glance; crossed his arms on his breast with a sort of impatient resignation, and muttered to himself half angrily—