Lucie wept at his departure; and, for the first time, his brow was clouded in her presence, and his heart chilled by the bodings of approaching evil.

Several weeks passed away, and he was still detained from home; to add to his uneasiness, no tidings from thence had reached him, since the early period of his absence.

Public rumor, indeed, told him that new persecutions had gone forth against the puritans; and the inflexible temper of his father, who had long been peculiarly obnoxious to the church party, excited the utmost anxiety, and determined him, at all events, to hasten his return.
After travelling nearly through the night, Arthur ascended one of the loftiest hills in Northumberland, just as the sun was shedding his earliest radiance on a beautiful valley, which lay before him.

It was his native valley, and the mansion of his father's looked cheerful amidst the group of venerable trees which surrounded it.

Time, since he last quitted it, had seared the freshness of their foliage, and the golden tints of autumn had succeeded the verdure of summer.