It was on a tranquil evening, in the sweet summer month of June, that a lady of no ordinary appearance sat at an open casement of many-coloured glass, and overlooked a wild, but singularly beautiful, country. From the window, a flight of steep stone steps led to a narrow terrace, that, in former times, had been carefully guarded by high parapets of rudely-carved granite; but they had fallen to decay, and lay in mouldering heaps on the shrubby bank, which ran almost perpendicularly to a rapid stream that danced like a sunny spirit through the green meadows, dotted and animated with sheep and their sportive lambs. In the distance, rude and rugged mountains towered in native dignity, “high in air,” their grim and sterile appearance forming an extraordinary, but not unpleasing, contrast to the pure and happy-looking valley at their base, where, however, a few dingy peasant-cottages lay thinly scattered, injuring, rather than enlivening, a scene that nature had done much to adorn, and man nothing to preserve. Half way up the nearest mountain, a little chapel, dedicated to “our Lady of Grace,” hung, like a wren's nest, on what seemed a point of rock; but even its rustic cross was invisible from the antique casement. Often and anxiously did the lady watch the distant figures who trod the hill-side towards the holy place, to perform some act of penance or devotion.

It was impossible to look at that interesting woman without affection; one might have almost thought her destined –

Though she was young, there was much of the dignity of silent sorrow in her aspect; and it was difficult to converse with her, without feeling her influence, – not to overpower, but to soften.