Chapter III.

"Haply despair hath seized her."
-- _Cymbeline._

It was now evening, and the landscape lay steeped
in yellow sunshine; when Mona Macdonald rode
slowly homewards, silent and buried in gloom. Her
way lay around the base of the mountain. But nei-
ther its adjacent and majestic sides on the one hand,
nor the placid, mellow-tinted, and sky-bounded plain
on the other were regarded by her. Her thoughts
were still with the advocate in his office, or with
her departed father in her native home below Que-
bec, as he and she had lived and loved each other
there, nearly twenty years before. Thus preoccu-
pied, she lent no heed to the landscape, although be-
fore her was the broad, descending sun, and behind
her was the mighty Saint Lawrence basking in bur-
nished gold; and soon another stream, a branch of the
Ottawa, appeared in the distance, the two clasping be-
tween them as in a zone the Island of Montreal.
But neither the note of birds, the lowing of cattle,
the barking of dogs, the churr of the bullfrog, the
distant human voices coming faintly over the lea, nor
yet the elysean landscape were seen or heard; and
not until the carriage drew up at Stillyside, and the
bark of a lap-dog, on the top of the distant steps,
that led to the verandah in front of the house, struck
her ear, did she fully awake from her mournful re-
verie. Then, alighting, she passed through a postern

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