XXXVII. A Painful Scene

XXXVIII. Explanations




ELSTER'S FOLLY




CHAPTER I.

BY THE EARLY TRAIN.


The ascending sun threw its slanting rays abroad on a glorious August
morning, and the little world below began to awaken into life--the life
of another day of sanguine pleasure or of fretting care.

Not on many fairer scenes did those sunbeams shed their radiance than on
one existing in the heart of England; but almost any landscape will look
beautiful in the early light of a summer's morning. The county, one of
the midlands, was justly celebrated for its scenery; its rich woods and
smiling plains, its river and gentler streams. The harvest was nearly
gathered in--it had been a late season--but a few fields of golden grain,
in process of reaping, gave their warm tints to the landscape. In no part
of the country had the beauties of nature been bestowed more lavishly
than on this, the village of Calne, situated about seven miles from the