and by a path slightly circuitous, descended the valley that ran between his father’s house and hers.  With solemn strides he perambulated it in every direction—­north, south, east, and west; not a natural bower in the glen was unexplored; not a green, quiet nook unsearched; not a shady tree unexam-ined; but all to no purpose.  Yet, although he failed in meeting herself, a thousand objects brought her to his heart.  Every dell, natural bower, and shady tree, presented him with a history of their past affections.  Here was the spot where, with beating heart and crimson cheek, she had first breathed out in broken music the acknowledgment of her love; there had another stolen meeting, a thousand times the sweeter for being stolen, taken place.  Every spot, in fact, was dear to him, and every object associated itself with delightful emotions that kindled new life in a spirit from which their parent affections had not yet passed away.

Denis now sought the only other place where he had any likelihood of meeting her:  this was at the well below her father’s house.  He walked down along the banks of the little stream that ran past it, until he reached a thorn bush that grew within a few yards of the spring.  Under this he sat, anxiously hoping that Susan might come to fill her evening pail, as he knew she was wont to do.  A thick flowery branch of the hawthorn, for it was the latter end of May, hung down from the trunk, and served as a screen through which he could observe her should she appear, without being visible himself.

It was now the hour of twilight; the evening was warm and balmy; the whitethorn tinder which he sat, and the profusion of wild flowers that spangled the bosom of the green glen, breathed their fragrance around him, and steeped, the emotions and remembrances which crowded thickly on him in deep and exquisite tenderness.  Up in the air he heard the quavering hum of the snipe, as it rose and fell in undulating motion, and the creak of the rail in many directions around him.  From an adjoining meadow in the distance, the merry voices of the village children came upon his ear, as they gathered the wild honey which dropped like dew from the soft clouds upon the long grassy stalks, and meadow-sweet, on whose leaves it lay like amber.  He remembered when he and Susan, on meeting there for a similar purpose, felt the first mysterious pleasure in being together, and the unaccountable melancholy produced by separation and absence.

At length he heard a footstep; but he could not persuade himself that the slow and lingering tread of the person approaching him was that of Susan, so much did it differ from the buoyant and elastic step with which she used to trip along.  On looking through the branches, however, he perceived her coming towards him, carrying the pitcher as usual in her hand.  The blood was already careering at full speed through his veins, and the palpitations of his heart were loud enough to be heard by the ear.