CHAPTER I.

Rachel frost.

The slanting rays of the afternoon sun, drawing towards the horizon, fell on a fair scene of country life; flickering through the young foliage of the oak and lime trees, touching the budding hedges, resting on the growing grass, all so lovely in their early green, and lighting up with flashes of yellow fire the windows of the fine mansion, that, rising on a gentle eminence, looked down on that fair scene as if it were its master, and could boast the ownership of those broad lands, of those gleaming trees.

Not that the house possessed much attraction for those whose taste savoured of the antique.  No time-worn turrets were there, or angular gables, or crooked eaves, or mullioned Gothic casements, so chary of glass that modern eyes can scarcely see in or out; neither was the edifice constructed of gray stone, or of bricks gone black and green with age.  It was a handsome, well-built white mansion, giving the promise of desirable rooms inside, whose chimneys did not smoke or their windows rattle, and where there was sufficient space to turn in.  The lower windows opened on a gravelled terrace, which ran along the front of the house, a flight of steps descending from it in its midst.  Gently sloping lawns extended from the terrace, on either side the steps and the broad walks which branched from them; on which lawns shone gay parterres of flowers already scenting the air, and giving promise of the advancing summer.  Beyond, were covered walks, affording a shelter from the sultry noontide sun; shrubberies and labyrinths of many turnings and windings, so suggestive of secret meetings, were secret meetings desirable; groves of scented shrubs exhaling their perfume; cascades and rippling fountains; mossy dells, concealing the sweet primrose, the sweeter violet; and verdant, sunny spots open to the country round, to the charming distant scenery.  These open spots had their benches, where you might sit and feast the eyes through the live-long summer day.

It was not summer yet—­scarcely spring—­and the sun, I say, was drawing to its setting, lighting up the large clear panes of the windows as with burnished gold.  The house, the ornamental grounds, the estate around, all belonged to Mr. Verner.  It had come to him by bequest, not by entailed inheritance.  Busybodies were fond of saying that it never ought to have been his; that, if the strict law of right and justice had been observed, it would have gone to his elder brother; or, rather, to that elder brother’s son.  Old Mr. Verner, the father of these two brothers, had been a modest country gentleman, until one morning when he awoke to the news that valuable mines had been discovered on his land.  The mines brought him in gold, and in his later years he purchased this estate, pulled down the house that was upon it—­a high, narrow, old thing, looking like a crazy tower or a capacious belfry—­and had erected this one, calling it “Verner’s Pride.”