“As I told you, I had for some time observed a change in the conduct and spirits of my poor sister Martha, and the looks exchanged between the good-looking stranger and herself led me to suspect, with the ready feeling of jealousy, that he might be, in some way or other, the cause of this great alteration. Yet I had never seen or heard of him before, as being either a resident or a visitor in the neighbourhood; nor could I conjecture how or where they had ever met. I determined, however, to fathom the mystery, for my sister’s welfare was as dear to me as my own, and I had at least as firm a reliance on her virtuous resolutions as I had of mine. Nothing, indeed, could make me for a moment suspect (and the event shows that it would have been criminal to suspect) that an improper thought or design had ever crossed her well-regulated mind. Observing her, one fine evening, during the week that these events occurred, quietly leave the house after the labours of the day were concluded, I determined to track her footsteps, though at such a distance as carefully to avoid her observation. What a path did she select for her evening’s ramble! Sir, you know the majestic shoulder of old Wraynos, out of which the river Duddon takes its rise, a little silver stream.—How it winds its way past the groves of Birker, under the gigantic heights of WALLA-BARROW CRAG, and through the delicious plain of DONNERDALE, gathering up the little mountain rivulets as it hurries on towards the sea, till, at SEATHWAITE, it becomes a bold and brawling stream, battling with the vast masses of fallen rock that encumber its bed, and sprinkling the bushes that stand gazing into its current with a perpetual dew. Down this romantic track did my sister haste with a step as light and as timid as a mountain deer,—and, sir, the race of the red deer of the mountain was not extinct in my day, but you often saw their antlered heads gazing down upon you from heights which the most experienced shepherd did not dare to climb. She did not, however, pursue the Duddon as far down as Seathwaite, but turning up to her left, by the side of a little feeder to the stream, entered the circular plain of a small valley, which is one of the most retired and beautiful in the whole region of the lakes. Every thing in it, houses, trees, and even men, seem as old, and grey, and peaceful, as the hills which surround it! Here my suspicions of the object of her journey were at once confirmed. At the moment she entered the little circular plain of smooth green-sward from below, the stranger whom we had encountered on the fell was seen to issue from the shrubs that clothed the upper termination of the valley; and they met in the centre with a punctuality which showed—though my poor sister’s step seemed to slacken a little as they approached—that the time and place of meeting were by no means accidental. As I gazed on his manly form and graceful air, I could not but hope that all this augured