seen dimpling the water, made by distance smoother than glass.

On the right side of Clarence's road, as he descended the hill, lay
wide plantations of fir and oak, divided from the road by a park
paling, the uneven sides of which were covered with brown moss, and
which, at rare openings in the young wood, gave glimpses of a park,
seemingly extending over great space, the theatre of many a stately
copse and oaken grove, which might have served the Druids with fane
and temple meet for the savage sublimity of their worship.

Upon these unfrequent views, Clarence checked his horse, and gazed,
with emotions sweet yet bitter, over the pales, along the green
expanse which they contained. And once, when through the trees he
caught a slight glimpse of the white walls of the mansion they
adorned, all the years of his childhood seemed to rise on his heart,
thrilling to its farthest depths with a mighty and sorrowful yet sweet
melody, and--

"Singing of boyhood back, the voices of his home."

Home! yes, amidst those groves had the April of his life lavished its
mingled smiles and tears! There was the spot hallowed by his earliest
joys! and the scene of sorrows still more sacred than joys! and now,
after many years, the exiled boy came back, a prosperous and
thoughtful man, to take but one brief glance of that home which to him
had been less hospitable than a stranger's dwelling, and to find a
witness among those who remembered him of his very birth and identity!

He wound the ascent at last, and entering a small town at the foot of
the hill, which was exactly facing the larger one on the opposite