ATHERTON. Yes, you puss. Here, you see, I have marked two ranges of hills which, parting company, enclose the broad sweep of our Brightdale, or Fairvalley. Where the hills are nearest together you see the one eminence covered with vines, the other with fruit trees; and on the sides and tops dusky groups of monks have had many a hard day’s work, getting rid of brambles and underwood, chopping and binding faggots, and preparing either slope to yield them wherewithal to drink, from the right hand, and to eat, from the left. Not far from this entrance to the valley stands the huge pile of the abbey itself, with its towers and crosses, its loop-hole windows and numerous outbuildings. That is the river Aube (Alba) running down between the heights; here, you see, is a winding channel the monks have dug, that a branch of it may flow in under the convent walls. Good river! how hard it works for them. No sooner under the archway than it turns the great wheel that grinds their corn, fills their caldarium, toils in the tannery, sets the fulling-mill agoing. Hark to the hollow booming sound, and the regular tramp, tramp of those giant wooden feet; and there, at last, out rushes the stream at the other side of the building, all in a fume, as if it had been ground itself into so much snowy foam. On this other side, you see it cross, and join the main course of its river again. Proceeding now along the valley, with your back to the monastery, you pass through the groves of the orchard, watered by crossing runnels from the river, overlooked by the infirmary windows—a delightful spot for contemplative invalids. Then you enter the great meadow—what a busy scene in hay-making time, all the monks out there, helped by the additional hands of _donati_ and _conductitii_, and the country folk from all the region round about,—they have been working since sunrise, and will work till vespers; when the belfry sounds for prayers at the fourth hour after sunrise, they will sing their psalms in the open air to save time, and doubtless dine there too—a monastic pic-nic. On one side of the meadow is a small lake, well stored with fish. See some of the brethren angling on its bank, where those osiers have been planted to preserve the margin; and two others have put off in a boat and are throwing their net, with edifying talk at whiles perhaps, on the parallel simplicity of fish and sinners. At the extremity of the meadow are two large farm-houses, one on each side the river; you might mistake them for monasteries from their size and structure, but for the ploughs and yokes of oxen you see about. MRS. ATHERTON. Thank you; so much for the place; and the man—his personal appearance—is anything known about that?