early chapter of this work--the old and
tenantless dwelling yclept Fieldhead. Tenantless by the proprietor it
had been for ten years, but it was no ruin. Mr. Yorke had seen it kept
in good repair, and an old gardener and his wife had lived in it,
cultivated the grounds, and maintained the house in habitable condition.

If Fieldhead had few other merits as a building, it might at least be
termed picturesque. Its regular architecture, and the gray and mossy
colouring communicated by time, gave it a just claim to this epithet.
The old latticed windows, the stone porch, the walls, the roof, the
chimney-stacks, were rich in crayon touches and sepia lights and shades.
The trees behind were fine, bold, and spreading; the cedar on the lawn
in front was grand; and the granite urns on the garden wall, the fretted
arch of the gateway, were, for an artist, as the very desire of the eye.

One mild May evening Caroline, passing near about moonrise, and feeling,
though weary, unwilling yet to go home, where there was only the bed of
thorns and the night of grief to anticipate, sat down on the mossy
ground near the gate, and gazed through towards cedar and mansion. It
was a still night--calm, dewy, cloudless; the gables, turned to the
west, reflected the clear amber of the horizon they faced; the oaks
behind were black; the cedar was blacker. Under its dense, raven boughs
a glimpse of sky opened gravely blue. It was full of the moon, which
looked solemnly and mildly down on Caroline from beneath that sombre
canopy.

She felt this night and prospect mournfully lovely. She wished she could
be happy; she wished she could know inward peace; she wondered
Providence had no pity on her, and would not help or console her.
Recollections of happy trysts of lovers, commemorated in old ballads,
returned on her mind; she thought such tryst in such scene would be
blissful. Where now was Robert? she asked. Not at the Hollow; she had
watched for his lamp long, and had not seen it. She questioned within
herself whether she and Moore were ever destined to meet and speak
again. Suddenly the door within the stone porch of the hall opened, and
two men came out--one elderly and white-headed, the other young,
dark-haired, and tall. They passed across the lawn, out through a portal
in the garden wall. Caroline saw them cross the road, pass the stile,
descend the fields; she saw them disappear. Robert Moore had passed
before her with his friend Mr. Yorke. Ne