same relation that a small bye-lane in a country town bears to the great
leading street which constitutes its principal feature.

Noon had long passed, and the dim sun of a wet autumnal day was sloping
down towards the west through clouds and gloom, when a young girl of
about twenty-one or twenty-two years of age came out of the cabin we
have mentioned, and running up to the top of a little miniature hill or
knob that rose beside it, looked round in every direction, as if anxious
to catch a glimpse of some one whom she expected. It appeared, however,
that she watched in vain; for after having examined the country in every
direction with an eye in which might be read a combined expression of
eagerness, anger and disappointment, she once more returned to the cabin
with a slow and meditating step. This she continued to do from time
to time for about an hour and a half, when at length a female appeared
approaching, whom she at once recognized.

The situation of this hovel, for such, in fact, it must be termed,
was not only strikingly desolate, but connected also with wild and
supernatural terrors. From the position of the glen itself, a little
within which it stood, it enjoyed only a very limited portion of the
sun's cheering beams. As the glen was deep and precipitous, so was the
morning light excluded from it by the northeastern hills, as was that of
evening by those which rose between it and the west. Indeed, it would
be difficult to find a spot marked by a character of such utter solitude
and gloom. Naturally barren, it bore not a single shrub on which a bird
could sit or a beast browse, and little, of course, was to be seen in
it but the bare gigantic projections of rock which shot out of its steep
sides in wild and uncouth shapes, or the grey, rugged expanses of which
it was principally composed. Indeed, we feel it difficult to say whether
the gloom of winter or the summer's heat fell upon it with an air of