Beulah had now been a mother several months.  Her little Evert was born at the Knoll, and he occupied most of those gentle and affectionate thoughts which were not engrossed by his absent father.  Her marriage, of itself, had made some changes in her intercourse with Maud; but the birth of the child had brought about still more.  The care of this little being formed Beulah’s great delight; and Mrs. Willoughby had all that peculiar interest in her descendant, which marks a grandmother’s irresponsible love.  These two passed half their time in the nursery, a room fitted between their respective chambers; leaving Maud more alone than it was her wont to be, and of course to brood over her thoughts and feelings.  These periods of solitude our heroine was much accustomed to pass in the forest.  Use had so far emboldened her, that apprehension never shortened her walks, or lessened their pleasure.  Of danger, from any ordinary source, there was literally next to none, man never having been known to approach the valley, unless by the regular path; while the beasts of prey had been so actively hunted, as rarely to be seen in that quarter of the country.  The panther excepted, no wild quadruped was to be in the least feared in summer; and, of the first, none had ever been met with by Nick, or any of the numerous woodsmen who had now frequented the adjacent hills for two lustrums.

About three hours before the setting of the sun, on the evening of the 23d of September, 1776, Maud Willoughby was pursuing her way, quite alone, along one of the paths beaten by the cattle, at some little distance from a rocky eminence, where there was a look-out, on which Mike, by her father’s orders, had made a rude seat.  It was on the side of the clearing most remote from all the cabins; though once on the elevation, she could command a view of the whole of the little panorama around the site of the ancient pond.  In that day, ladies wore the well-known gipsey hat, a style that was peculiarly suited to the face of our heroine.  Exercise had given her cheeks a rich glow; and though a shade of sadness, or at least of reflection, was now habitually thrown athwart her sweet countenance, this bloom added an unusual lustre to her eyes, and a brilliancy to her beauty, that the proudest belle of any drawing-room might have been glad to possess.  Although living so retired, her dress always became her rank; being simple, but of the character that denotes refinement, and the habits and tastes of a gentlewoman.  In this particular, Maud had ever been observant of what was due to herself; and, more than all, had she attended to her present appearance since a chance expression of Robert Willoughby’s had betrayed how much he prized the quality in her.