--A MEETING OF TWO LOVERS AFTER LONG ABSENCE AND MUCH SORROW.
--CONCLUSION.




EUGENE ARAM


BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

THE VILLAGE.--ITS INHABITANTS.--AN OLD MANORHOUSE: AND AN ENGLISH FAMILY;
THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERIOUS EVENT.

"Protected by the divinity they adored, supported by the earth which they
cultivated, and at peace with themselves, they enjoyed the sweets of
life, without dreading or desiring dissolution." Numa Pompilius.

In the country of--there is a sequestered hamlet, which I have often
sought occasion to pass, and which I have never left without a certain
reluctance and regret. It is not only (though this has a remarkable spell
over my imagination) that it is the sanctuary, as it were, of a story
which appears to me of a singular and fearful interest; but the scene
itself is one which requires no legend to arrest the traveller's
attention. I know not in any part of the world, which it has been my lot
to visit, a landscape so entirely lovely and picturesque, as that which
on every side of the village I speak of, you may survey. The hamlet to
which I shall here give the name of Grassdale, is situated in a valley,