It was on a delightful evening in the early spring, that I found myself seated, for the first time, in a comfortable little parlour pertaining to the Black Swan, and Mary attending on me--she being the chief, nay, almost the only person in the establishment, who could serve a table. I was struck with her loveliness, as well as captivated with her engaging manner, and though I had for thirty years defied the artifices of blind Cupid, I now felt myself all at once over head and ears in love with this village beauty. Although placed in so low a sphere as that in which I then beheld her, there was a something about her that proclaimed her to be of gentle birth. Whoever looked upon her countenance, felt conscious that there was a respect due to her which it is far from customary to extend to girls in waiting at an inn. Hers were "Eyes so pure, that from their ray Dark vice would turn abashed away." Her feet were small and fairy-like, from which, if her voice, redolent of musical softness--that thing so desirable in woman--had not already informed me, I should have set her down as being of English extraction. Several months elapsed ere it was again in my power to visit Altonby. During all that time, my vagrant thoughts had been of Mary--sleeping or waking, her form was ever present to my fancy. On entering the Black Swan, it was Mary who bounded forward to welcome me with a delighted smile. She seemed gratified at my return; and I was no less so at the cordiality of my reception. The month was July, and the evening particularly fine; so, not having business of much consequence to transact in the place, and Mary having to attend to the comforts of others beside myself, then sojourning at the Black Swan, I sallied forth alone-- "To take my evening's walk of meditation." When one happens to be left _per se_ in a provincial town, where he is alike unknowing and unknown--where there is no theatre or other place of amusement in which to spend the evening--it almost invariably happens that he pays a visit to the churchyard, and delights himself, for an hour or so, with deciphering the tombstones,--a recreation extremely healthful to the body, and soothing to the mind. It was to the churchyard on that evening I bent my steps, thinking, as I went along, seriously of Mary. "What is she to me?" I involuntarily exclaimed; "I have no time to waste upon women: I am a wanderer, with no great portion of worldly gear. In my present circumstances it is impossible I can marry her; and to think of her in any other light were villanous. No, no! I will no longer cherish a dream which can never be realised."