On the third day after the arrival of Colonel Falconer, the solitude of Hawk-Hollow began to be broken by the appearance of divers carriages, filled with gay and well dressed people, the destination of all whom appeared to be Gilbert's Folly. A few individuals, the more favoured of the villagers, were seen mingling their equipages occasionally with the others; but it was plain that the majority of visiters were strangers, and had come from a distance. The object of such an unusual convocation of guests at Gilbert's Folly, could not long remain a mystery; and indeed it was known, several days before, that it was to do honour to the nuptials of Henry Falconer with the daughter of Captain Loring. The wealth and standing of the bridegroom's father were sufficient to secure him the means of giving _éclat_ to the ceremony, at a day when that ceremony was always one of festivity; and accordingly there appeared guests enough, and of sufficient figure, long before night, at the mansion, to convince those who took note of such circumstances, that it would be such a wedding as had never before been known in all that county.--And such indeed it proved; though not even the most imaginative could have foreseen from what unusual circumstances it was to owe its claim to be remembered. Upon that day, while all others were laughing and smiling, a deep and moody dejection seized upon the spirits of the bridegroom's father; and although he displayed his wonted courtesy in receiving his guests, (they should be considered _his_, for the bride was without kinsfolk, and her father had invited none to partake of his joy, save a few villagers,) the task of continuing to trifle with them during the entire day became intolerably irksome, and perhaps the more so that his habits had for so many years accustomed him to solitude and privacy. Worn out at last, he exchanged the noisy apartments of the mansion for the shaded garden-walks; until, finally, driven from these by an increase of his melancholy and the presence of a bevy of maidens, seeking flowers to decorate their fair persons, or perhaps that of the bride, he fled from them to the more unfrequented walks in the park.