Looking thus, and in a melancholy frame of mind, Maud reached the rock, and took her place on its simple seat, throwing aside her hat, to catch a little of the cooling air on her burning cheeks.  She turned to look at the lovely view again, with a pleasure that never tired.  The rays of the sun were streaming athwart the verdant meadows and rich corn, lengthening the shadows, and mellowing everything, as if expressly to please the eye of one like her who now gazed upon the scene.  Most of the people of the settlement were in the open air, the men closing their day’s works in the fields, and the women and children busied beneath shades, with their wheels and needles; the whole presenting such a picture of peaceful, rural life, as a poet might delight to describe, or an artist to delineate with his pencil.

  “The landscape smiles
  Calm in the sun; and silent are the hills
  And valleys, and the blue serene of air.”

The Vanished Lark.

“It is very beautiful!” thought Maud.  “Why cannot men be content with such scenes of loveliness and nature as this, and love each other, and be at peace, as God’s laws command?  Then we might all be living happily together, Mere, without trembling lest news of some sad misfortune should reach us, from hour to hour.  Beulah and Evert would not be separated; but both could remain with their child—­and my dear, dear father and mother would be so happy to have us all around them, in security—­and, then, Bob, too—­perhaps Bob might bring a wife from the town, with him, that I could love as I do Beulah”—­It was one of Maud’s day-dreams to love the wife of Bob, and make him happy by contributing to the happiness of those he most prized—­“No; I could never love her as I do Beulah; but I should make her very dear to me, as I ought to, since she would be Bob’s wife.”

The expression of Maud’s face, towards the close of this mental soliloquy, was of singular sadness; and yet it was the very picture of sincerity and truth.  It was some such look as the windows of the mind assume, when the feelings struggle against nature and hope, for resignation and submission to duty.

At this instant, a cry arose from the valley!  It was one of those spontaneous, involuntary outbreakings of alarm, that no art can imitate, no pen describe; but which conveys to the listener’s ear, terror in the very sound.  At the next instant, the men from the mill were seen rushing up to the summit of the cliff that impended over their dwellings, followed by their wives dragging children after them, making frantic gestures, indicative of alarm.  The first impulse of Maud was to fly; but a moment’s reflection told her it was much too late for that.  To remain and witness what followed would be safer, and more wise.  Her dress was dark, and she would not be likely to be observed at the distance at which she was placed; having behind her, too, a back-ground of gloomy rock.  Then the scene was too exciting to admit of much hesitation or delay in coming to a decision; a fearful species of maddened curiosity mingling with her alarm.  Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that Maud continued gazing on what she saw, with eyes that seemed to devour the objects before them.