There was yet another family with whom the Garnets were upon terms of close intimacy and friendship—their next neighbors, the Hardcastles of Hemlock Hollow, whose estate joined Mount Calm, lying immediately behind and below it, and extending further inland. The family at the Hollow consisted of Lionel Hardcastle, High Sheriff of the State; his only son, Lionel, Jr., a youth of fifteen, and his nephew, Magnus, a boy of ten years old. Lionel Hardcastle was the only man in the county with whom General Garnet could be said to be on terms of close intimacy. Their estates, as I said, joined; their rank in life was upon a par, and their country interests almost identical. They were also of the same party in politics, of the same denomination in religion, and of like opinion upon all common and local questions; so that there was very little to differ about, while there was a great deal to attract them to each other in their very opposite temperaments and characters, experiences, and mental acquisitions. Mrs. Garnet had always been strongly attached to the family at the Hollow, and though there was no lady at the head of the establishment to receive her, she continued to accept the invitations to dinner extended to General Garnet and herself, and always accompanied him thither. But Mrs. Garnet had her favorite among the Hardcastles—this was young Magnus Hardcastle, the nephew, a fine, handsome, spirited, and generous boy, devotedly fond of his beautiful neighbor, and her sweet little girl. Very often would Mrs. Garnet take Magnus home with her to spend several days or weeks at Mount Calm. And when he was not staying there, still every day would the boy find his way to Mount Calm, with some little childish love-offering to its sweet mistress. In spring it would be a bunch of wood violets, or wild sweet-briar roses, gathered in the thicket, and of which Alice was very fond; in summer, a little flag-basket of wild strawberries or raspberries, which Alice loved better than hothouse or garden fruit; in autumn, a hat full of chestnuts and chinkapins, gathered in the forest, and hulled by himself; even in winter the little fellow might be seen trudging on, knee-deep in snow, with a bunch of snow-birds which he had caught in his trap for pretty Cousin Alice, as he called Mrs. Garnet. Very bright would grow Mrs. Garnet’s pleasant chamber when Magnus, with his sunny smile, would break in upon the pensive lady and the little child, and light up all the room with his gladness. Very often the lady would open her arms to receive the joyous boy, and fold him to her bosom in a most loving clasp, grateful for the new life and joy he ever brought her. Mrs. Garnet loved her own beautiful and gentle child, but it was with a profound, earnest, almost mournful and foreboding love. But Magnus was a perpetual day-spring of gladness and delight to her. She could not look upon the boy without a thrill of sympathetic joy and hope.