Above this the gorge of the ravine--for into such the dell here degenerated--was thickly overshadowed by a grove of old tufted oak-trees, which might well have rung to the brazen trumpets of the Roman legions, and echoed the wild war-whoops of the barbarous Gauls in the days of the first Cæsar. Sheltered and half-concealed by these, there stood a very small, old-fashioned chapel, in the earliest and rudest style of Norman architecture, exhibiting the short, massive, clustered columns and round-headed arches of that antique style. It had never spire or tower; but on the summit of the steep, peaked roof there was a little crypt or vaulted canopy, supported by four columns, and containing a bell proportioned to the dimensions of the humble village-chapel. The larger valley presented all the usual beauties of rural landscape scenery at that remote and unscientific day, when lands were principally laid down in pasture, and husbandry consisted mainly in the tending of flocks and herds. There were wide expanses of common ground, dotted here and there with few arable fields now green as the pastures with their young crops of wheat and rye; there were woodlands bright in their new greenery, and apple-orchards, glowing with their fragrant blossoms. There were scattered farmhouses among the orchards; and an irregular hamlet scattered along a yellow road in the foreground, among shadowy elm-trees, all festooned with vines; and far off, on the farthest slope on the verge of the horizon, the towers and pinnacles of a tall, castellated building towered above the grand and solemn woods, which probably composed the chase of some feudal seigneur. The little dale which I have described was traversed by two separate ways: one, a regular road, so far as any roads of the fourteenth century could be called regular, and adapted for horses and such rude vehicles as the age and the country required; the other, a narrow, winding foot-path, following the bends of the rivulet, which the other crossed by a picturesque wooden bridge, at about five hundred yards below the well-head and the chapel. At the moment when my tale commences, the doors of the chapel were thrown wide open, and the little bell was tinkling with a merry chime that harmonized well with the gay aspect of nature--the music of the rejoicing birds which were filling the air with their glee, and the lively ripple of the stream fretting over its pebbly bed. As if summoned by the joyous cadence of the bells, a numerous party was now seen coming up the foot-path by the edge of the rivulet, apparently from the hamlet in the larger valley, wending their way toward the chapel. It needed but a glance to discover the occasion. It was a bridal-procession, headed by the gray-haired village priest in full canonicals, and some of the elders of the village.