Arthur Stanhope had then just retired from his profession, and the chagrin and disappointment, which at first depressed his spirits, gradually yielded to the charm which led him daily to the house of Mad.  Rossville.  Constant intercourse and familiar acquaintance strengthened the influence, which Lucie’s sweetness and vivacity had created, and he soon loved her with the fervor and purity of a young and unsophisticated heart.  Yet he loved in silence,—­for his future plans were frustrated, his ambitious hopes were blighted; a writ of banishment and proscription hung over his father’s house, and what had he to offer to one endowed by nature and fortune with gifts, which ranked her with the proudest and noblest in the land!  But love needs not the aid of words; and the sentiments of the heart, beaming in an ingenuous countenance, are more forcible than any language which the lips can utter.  Lucie was too artless to disguise the feelings which she was, as yet, scarce conscious of cherishing; but Arthur read in the smile and blush which ever welcomed his approach, the sigh which seemed to regret his departure, and the eloquent expression of an eye, which varied with every emotion of her soul, a tale of tenderness as ardent and confiding as his own.  The future was unheeded in the dream of present enjoyment; for who, that loves, can doubt of happiness, or bear to look forward to the melancholy train of dark and disappointed hours which time may unfold!

In the midst of these dawning hopes, Arthur Stanhope was called to a distant part of the kingdom on business, which nearly concerned his father’s private interest.  Lucie wept at his departure; and, for the first time, his brow was clouded in her presence, and his heart chilled by the bodings of approaching evil.  Several weeks passed away, and he was still detained from home; to add to his uneasiness, no tidings from thence had reached him, since the early period of his absence.  Public rumor, indeed, told him that new persecutions had gone forth against the puritans; and the inflexible temper of his father, who had long been peculiarly obnoxious to the church party, excited the utmost anxiety, and determined him, at all events, to hasten his return.

After travelling nearly through the night, Arthur ascended one of the loftiest hills in Northumberland, just as the sun was shedding his earliest radiance on a beautiful valley, which lay before him.  It was his native valley, and the mansion of his father’s looked cheerful amidst the group of venerable trees which surrounded it.  Time, since he last quitted it, had seared the freshness of their foliage, and the golden tints of autumn had succeeded the verdure of summer.  A little farther on, the house of Mad.  Rossville was just discernible; and Arthur’s heart bounded with transport, as he thought how soon he should again embrace those whom he most loved on earth!  But a different fate awaited him, and tidings, which withered every hope he had so long and