he banks of the lovely
Severn, stood the residence of a wealthy merchant. There was nothing
about the house or grounds that denoted the occupant or owner to be of a
mercantile turn; for there certainly is, very generally, something about
merchants' houses that is prim and starch--something precise and formal
about them, as though they had been planned according to the "Golden
Rule of Three," and executed with reference to the multiplication table.
It is a most melancholy fact, that the close, confined air of a
counting-room is deadly poison to a taste for the fine arts, and, but
too often, to every thing like liberality of feeling.

Effingham House was neither planned nor executed upon a grand or a mean
scale; there was nothing extravagant or penurious, vast or contracted,
about it; but it presented a happy combination of the comfortable, the
elegant, and the neat. Such houses are very common indeed throughout New
England; in the _old_ country there is a constant repetition of the
fable of the frog and the ox--the wealthy cit endeavoring to equal the
haughty splendors of the nobleman.

The villa that we describe fronted upon a large and beautiful lawn, that
gradually sloped towards the river, of which, and the lovely scenery
beyond it, it commanded an enchanting view, and was spotted with noble
oaks and elms, that appeared to have stood ever since the Conquest, or
might, perhaps, have overshadowed the legions of Agricola. A carriage
path, well gravelled and kept perfectly free from dirt and weeds, wound
around among these primeval trees, occasionally emerging from their
shade, as if to give the approaching stranger an opportunity to view
every part of the delightful landscape.

Along this path a horseman was seen riding, one lovely afternoon in
September. The air of the rider was that of a man to whom the scene was
perfectly familiar, but who seemed busy with thoughts that made him
inattentive to its beauties. His sunburnt countenance, and an
indescribable something in his whole appearance, that the experienced
eye of a member of the same fraternity only could discern, announced
that he was one of those that "followed the seas."

He alighted, and, giving his horse to a servant, ran up the steps of the
portico. A young lady, who was tending some flowers at a little
distance, hearing his footsteps, sprang towards him with sparkling eyes
and smiling countenance, exclaiming in a voice of most unequivocal
tenderness, "Ge