t washing and mending at the hands of the maid. Old
Valentine, who visited the house every day, the weather being cold and
sometimes cloudy, but without rain, called at the sick chamber now
and then, and filled it with tobacco smoke, homely philosophy, and
rustic reminiscence. Harry had no other visitors. During these five
days he saw not Elizabeth or Miss Sally, save from his window twice or
thrice, at which times they were walking on the terrace. In daytime,
when no artificial light was in the room to betray to some possible
outsider the presence of a guest, he had the shutters opened of one of
the two south windows and of one of the two west ones. Often he
reclined near a window, pleasing his eyes with the view. Westward lay
the terrace, the wide river, the leafy, cliffs, and fair rolling
country beyond. His eye could take in also the deer paddock, which the
hand of war had robbed of its inmates, and the great orchard northward
overlooking the river. Through the south window he could see the
little branch road and boat-landing, the old stone mill, the winding
Neperan and its broad mill-pond, and the sloping, ravine-cut, wooded
stretch of country, between the post-road on the left and the deep-set
Hudson on the right. The spire of St. John's Church, among the
yew-trees, with the few edifices grouped near it, broke gratefully the
deserted aspect of things, at the left. The spacious scene, so richly
filled by nature, had in its loneliness and repose a singular
sweetness. Rarely was any one abroad. Only when the Hessians or
Loyalist dragoons patrolled the post-road, or when some British
sloop-of-war showed its white sails far down the river, was there sign
of human life and conflict. The deserted look of things was in harmony
with the spirit of a book with which Harry sweetened the long hours of
his recovery. It was a book that Elizabeth had sent up for his
amusement, called "The Man of Feeling," and there was something in the
opening picture of the venerable mansion, with its air of melancholy,
its languid stillness, its "single crow, perched on an old tree by the
side of the gate," and its young lady passing between the trees with a
book in her hand, that harmonized with his own sequestered state. He
liked the tale better than the same author's later novel, "The Man of
the World," which he had read a few years before. Every day he
inquired about his hostess's health, and sent his compliments and
thanks. He was glad she