rudiments of plain English instruction, still she had been taught
much more than was usual for young women in her own station in life;
and, in one sense certainly, she did credit to her teaching. The
widow of a field-officer, who formerly belonged to the same regiment
as her father, had taken the child in charge at the death of its
mother; and under the care of this lady Mabel had acquired some
tastes and many ideas which otherwise might always have remained
strangers to her. Her situation in the family had been less that
of a domestic than of a humble companion, and the results were
quite apparent in her attire, her language, her sentiments, and
even in her feelings, though neither, perhaps, rose to the level
of those which would properly characterize a lady. She had lost
the less refined habits and manners of one in her original position,
without having quite reached a point that disqualified her for the
situation in life that the accidents of birth and fortune would
probably compel her to fill. All else that was distinctive and
peculiar in her belonged to natural character.

With such antecedents it will occasion the reader no wonder if he
learns that Mabel viewed the novel scene before her with a pleasure
far superior to that produced by vulgar surprise. She felt its
ordinary beauties as most would have felt them, but she had also a
feeling for its sublimity -- for that softened solitude, that calm
grandeur, and eloquent repose, which ever pervades broad views of
natural objects yet undisturbed by the labors and struggles of man.

"How beautiful!" she exclaimed, unconscious of speaking, as she
stood on the solitary bastion, facing the air from the lake, and
experiencing the genial influence of its freshness pervading both
her body and her mind. "How very beautiful! and yet how singular!"