There was a clump of ten or twelve beeches perched upon a little knoll, overhanging the road which led to the nearest town from Ale Manor and village. A few were decayed and hollowed out, leaving little but the bark standing, with two or three long branches stretching forth, and still bearing the verdant livery of youth, even in their extreme old age. Others were in their vigorous prime, too regular and rounded to be very picturesque; while one or two were in that state of half-decay which casts this peculiar tree into the most fantastic forms. Sitting under one of those nearest to the road, from which it might be distant about fifty yards, was Emmeline Newark. She was shaded from the sun in the position which she had assumed, and, at the same time, caught any wind that was stirring; for, blowing, as I have said, very, very lightly from the sea, it came up the deep dell from Ale Bay and along the course of the stream, seeming to pause, as if in sport, amongst the beeches, and whirling round the wooded knoll. She had a book in her hand; I know not well what it was; it might have been Pope, or Addison, or any of those stars that were setting or rising about that time--never mind a mixed metaphor, dear critic. She was in one of her musing moods, however, and the book lay unnoticed on her knee, as, leaning slightly on one side, with her shoulder supported against the smooth bark of the beech, and her eyes peeping out from under the branches towards the opposite hill and the blue sky above it, she lay, rather than sat, in an attitude of exquisite grace. The sun was very near the meridian, and his brightness would have been oppressive to the eye, had it not been that the cool colouring of the scene around, the green trees, the brown hills, and the grey rocks, seemed to drink up the rays, or return them softened and mellowed to the eye. She had sat there some time, without seeing a living creature or a moving thing, except a large bird of prey, which kept whirling in immense circles far over head. But now a man on horseback, in the garb of a servant, leading another horse by the bridle, passed slowly along the road, without noticing her, and took his way up towards the old Manor House. She gazed after him with that feeling of curiosity which is generated by a solitary state of life. She marked him along the road till it was lost in the wood, and, as she did so, some one on foot was heard to pass along under the trees, as if coming up a very steep path from the little village. "It is Richard," she thought, peeping under the branches. "Poor boy! he has not gained much during the last twelvemonths. He will be a child all his life, I fear."