MABEL. CHAPTER I. Oh, timely, happy, timely wise, New every morning is the love, Our waking and uprising prove, Through sleep and darkness safely brought, Keeble. ONE morning, early in the month of August, a few years since, the sun rose lazily and luxuriously over the hills that bounded the little VOL. I. B village of Aston, which lay in one of the prettiest valleys of Gloucestershire. The golden beams of that glorious luminary falling first upon the ivy-covered tower of the little church, seemed, to the eye of fancy, to linger with pleasure round the sacred edifice, as if glad to recognize the altar of Him, who. from the beginning, had fixed his daily course through the bright circle of the heavens, then pouring a flood of brilliancy on the simple rectory, danced over the hills, and played with the many windows of the old Manor House, which, situated at a short distance from the church, formed one of the most striking objects of the village. Only here and there a thick volume of smoke rose from the cottages scattered over the valley, while the only living object visible was a young man, who thus early walked down the steep and winding path, which led from the rectory, and strolled leisurely forward, as if attracted by the beauties of the early morning. The slow pace with which he moved seemed to betoken either indolence or fatigue, while his dress, which was of the latest fashion, slightly contrasted with the ancient-looking simplicity of the place. Captain Clair, for such was his name, had quitted his regiment, then in India, and returned to England, with the hope of recruiting his health, which had been considerably impaired by his residence abroad. On the preceding evening, he had arrived at the rectory, upon a visit to his uncle, who wished him to try the bracing air of Gloucestershire as a change from town, where he had been lingering for some little time since his return to England. In person, the young officer was slight and well made, with a becoming military air; his countenance light and fresh colored, spite of Indian suns, and, on the whole, prepossessing, though not untinged by certain worldly charac ters, as if he had entered perhaps too thoughtlessly on a world of sin and temptation. There is, however, something still and holy in the early morning, when the sin and folly of nature has slept, or seemed to sleep, and life again awakes with fresh energy to labor. The dew from heaven has not fallen upon the herb alone, it seems to rest upon the spirit of man which rises full of renewed strength to that toil before which it sank heavily at eve; and as Captain Clair felt the breeze rising with its dewy incense to heaven, his mind seemed to receive fresh impetus, and his thoughts a higher tone. Languidly as he pursued his way, his eye drank in the beauties of a new country, with all the fervour of a poetical imagination. On the right and left of the village, as he entered it, were high hills, covered with brushwood, a few cottages, with their simple gardens, lay in the hollow, and the church, standing |