forsaken widow had risen superior to the praise or contempt of the
world, and she now valued its regard at the price which it deserved. But
she had an intense longing to behold once more the woods and fields
where she had rambled in her happy childhood; to wander by the pleasant
streams, and sit under the favorite trees; to see the primrose and
violet gemming the mossy banks of the dear hedge-rows, to hear the birds
sing among the hawthorn blossoms; and, surrounded by the
fondly-remembered sights and sounds of beauty, to recall the sweet
dreams of youth.

Did no warning voice whisper to her that she had made a rash
choice?--that the bitterness of party hatred outlives all other
hate?--that the man who had persecuted her young enthusiastic husband to
the death was not likely to prove a kind neighbor to his widow? Mrs.
Wildegrave forgot all this, and only hoped that Squire Hurdlestone had
outlived his hostility to her family. Sixteen years had elapsed since
Captain Wildegrave had perished on the scaffold. The world had forgotten
his name, and the nature of his offence. It was not possible for a mere
political opponent to retain his animosity to the dead. But she had
formed a very incorrect estimate of Squire Hurdlestone's powers of
hating.

The arrival of Captain Wildegrave's widow in his immediate vicinity
greatly enraged the old Squire; but as he possessed no power of
denouncing women as traitors, he was obliged to content himself by
pouring forth, on every occasion, the most ill-natured invectives
against his poor unprotected neighbors.

He wondered at the impudence of the traitor Wildegrave's widow and
daughter daring to lift up their heads among a loyal community, where