crude, narrow-minded
opinions and ideas.

Scorn and contempt for the man she had married were fast mastering all
kinder feelings she once had toward him.

CHAPTER XVI.

"I bid you leave the girl, and think no more
About her from henceforth."

"Ah, I can leave
Her, sire;--but to forget will be, I fear,
A thing beyond my power."

It was midsummer, and the Hermit of the Cedars sat under his low piazza,
curiously constructed of the enwreathed boughs and branches of evergreen
trees. He held a volume in his attenuated hand, with the contents of
which, he seemed intently occupied. His appearance was melancholy in the
extreme. A pale, thin face;--deep sunken eyes, and a broad, high brow,
by sorrow seamed with furrows long and wide; for she doth ever dig with
deeper, harsher hand than time. A loose linen garment was wrapped around
his tall, gaunt form, and a white handkerchief tied over his head to
prevent the passing breezes from blowing his thin, straggling gray hair
about his features.

So intent was he on the contents of his book that he did not notice the
approach of the cheerer of his solitude. Edgar came along the narrow
path with a step quicker and more impatient than was his wont, and there
was an expression on his fine, manly face which had something of
mortification and anger, but more of regret and sorrow. He threw his
satchel on the ground, and sat down at the hermit's feet, who laid aside
his volume, on beholding him in that position, and asked him if he was
fatigued or ill.

"No," said the youth, "but I shall be glad when I am gone away from here
to the university."

"Ah!" returned the hermit, "it is as I knew it would be when I placed
you at the seminary. Your desire for fame and honor has returned, and
you long to go forth in the great world and mingle in its
st[illegible]."

"No," said Edgar, "I would rather live and die within the walls of this
hermitage, than ever go beyond them again; but I'm resolved I will not
do the foolish thing. I'll go forth, and if my life is spared, show
those who call me a foundling, and a wild cub of the woods, that I am
something more than they suppose me to be."

"Who has dared apply such epithets to you, my boy?" exclaimed the
hermit, his pale cheeks glowing with anger.

"Do you know Major Howard of 'Summer Home?'" asked Edgar.

"That do I