forest while a waste of seemingly
interminable water spread itself on the other. Nature had appeared to delight in
producing grand effects, by setting two of her principal agents in bold relief
to each other, neglecting details; the eye turning from the broad carpet of
leaves, to the still broader field of fluid, from the endless but gentle
heavings of the lake, to the holy calm, and poetical solitude of the forest,
with wonder and delight.
    Mabel Dunham, though unsophisticated, like most of her countrywomen of that
period, and ingenuous and frank as any warm-hearted and sincere-minded girl well
could be, was not altogether without a feeling for the poetry of this beautiful
earth of ours. Though she could scarcely be said to be educated at all, for few
of her sex at that day, and in this country, received much more than the
rudiments of plain English instruction, still she had been taught much more than
was usual for young women in her own station in life, and, in one sense
certainly, she did credit to her teaching. The widow of a Field Officer, who
formerly belonged to the same regiment as her father, had taken the child in
charge, at the death of its mother, and under the care of this lady, Mabel had
acquired some tastes, and many ideas, which otherwise might always have remained
strangers to her. Her situation in the family had been less that of a domestic,
than of a humble companion, and the results were quite apparent, in her attire,
her language, her sentiments, and even in her feelings; though neither perhaps
rose to the level of those which would properly characterize a lady. She had
lost the coarser and less refined habits and manners of one in her original
position, without having quite reached a point that disqualified her for the
situation in life that the accidents of birth and fortune would probably compel
her to fill. All else that was distinctive and peculiar in her, belonged to
natural character.
    With such antecedents, it will occasion the reader no wonder, if he learns
that Mabel viewed the novel scene before her, with a pleasure far superior to
that produced by vulgar surprise. She felt its ordinary beauties, as most would
have felt them, but she had also a feeling for its sublimity; for that softened
solitude, that calm grandeur, and eloquent repose that ever pervades broad views
of natural objects which are yet undisturbed by the labors and uneasy struggles
of man.
    »How beautiful!« she exclaimed, unconscious of speaking, as she stood on the
solitary bastion, facing the air