Mark extended his walk to the cliff--to the villa that had seemed to him a very palace of enchantment, and around which so many blissful associations clustered. Here was the spot where he had made his first avowal of love, and he could almost recall the novel, delicious thrill with which he pressed Edna's hand to his lips. Now the gates were chained and locked, and their lamps broken by vagrant boys; the lodge was tenantless; the marble basin of the fountain choked with dead leaves, and its spouting swans decapitated; the grounds neglected, and the windows of the imposing structure blinded. How sad and deserted an aspect! How changed the place--once the abode of "elegant Eunomia," the goddess of his dreams! He remembered his surreptitious visit and eavesdropping the night of Edna's party. Where were all that youth and beauty now? The sweeping wind answered with a dismal sigh. Was there any omen in this? His reverie was cut short by the patter of horses' hoofs behind him. It was the four-in-hand of Mr. Nehemiah Gogglemush, a new-comer in Belton, who saluted him with a stare. This man, who seemed ambitious to succeed to the position of the late magnifico, was the inventor of the world-famous "Terpsichorean Ointment," a corn-salve of marvellous virtue, that had brought him a fortune correspondingly marvellous. He had purchased a site on the cliff and reared a gorgeous pile, all turrets, gilt Tudor-flowers and weathercocks, which completely overshadowed Mr. Mumbie's dwelling. Gogglemush seemed to have no end of money and actually dared to set up a drag, while his wife and daughters made shameful exhibitions of themselves in diamonds, point-lace, India shawls; and deported themselves generally in a way that no person in their station, and connected with corn-salve, who had any regard for public opinion, would venture to. Moreover, at church the Misses Adela and Angela Gogglemush, in all their odious finery, monopolized the attention of the congregation, and even the rector was reported to be not indifferent to the attractions of the younger of the two. Of course it was impossible for the Mumbies to live in constant proximity to such vulgarity, and especially as there was absolutely no one now in the place, except Judge Hull's family, with whom they could associate, as Mrs. Mumbie said, they had been forced to remove to New York.