tedded grass, all of which, when crushed beneath the foot, sent
a mingled tribute to its sparkling waves, the wild stream took its
gladsome course, now contracted by gloomy firs, which, bending over the
water, cast somewhat of their own sadness upon its surface; now glancing
forth from the shade, as it "broke into dimples and laughed in the sun;"
now washing the gnarled and spreading roots of some lonely ash,
which, hanging over it still and droopingly, seemed--the hermit of the
scene--to moralize on its noisy and various wanderings; now winding
round the hill and losing itself at last amidst thick copses, where day
did never more than wink and glimmer, and where, at night, its waters,
brawling through their stony channel, seemed like a spirit's wail, and
harmonized well with the scream of the gray owl wheeling from her dim
retreat, or the moaning and rare sound of some solitary deer.

As Clarence's eye roved admiringly over the scene before him, it dwelt
at last upon a small building situated on the wildest part of the
opposite bank; it was entirely overgrown with ivy, and the outline only
remained to show the Gothic antiquity of the architecture. It was
a single square tower, built none knew when or wherefore, and,
consequently, the spot of many vagrant guesses and wild legends among
the surrounding gossips. On approaching yet nearer, he perceived, alone
and seated on a little mound beside the tower, the object of his search.

Mordaunt was gazing with vacant yet earnest eye upon the waters beneath;
and so intent was either his mood or look that he was unaware of
Clarence's approach. Tears fast and large were rolling from those
haughty eyes, which men who shrank from their indifferent glance little
deemed were capable of such weak and feminine emotion. Far, far through
the aching void of time were the thoughts of the reft and solitary
mourner; they were dwelling, in all the vivid and keen intensity of
grief which dies not, upon the day when, about that hour and on that
spot, he sat with Isabel's young cheek upon his bosom, and listened to
a voice now only heard in dreams. He recalled the moment when the fatal
letter, charged with change and poverty, was given to him, and the pang
which had rent his heart as he looked around upon a scene over which
spring had just then breathed, and which he was about to leave to a
fresh summer and a new lord; and then that deep, fond, half-fearful gaze
with which Isabel had met his ey