86
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
sylvan cloister of nature's building, and vocal with sounds
of innocence — the songs of birds, and sometimes those of
its young mistress — was no more proof than the Meso-
potamian haunt of our first parents against the intrusion
of darker spirits. So, as she worked, she lifted up her
eyes, and beheld a rather handsome young man standing
at the little wicket of her garden, with his gloved hand
on the latch. A man of fashion—a town man—hia
dress bespoke him: smooth cheeks, light brown curling
moustache, and eyes peculiar both in shape and color,
and something of elegance of finish in his other features,
and of general grace in the coup d' ceil, struck one at a
glance. He was smiling silently and slily on Rachel,
who, with a little cry of surprise, said —
"Oh, Stanley! is it you?"
And before he could answer, she had thrown her arms
about his neck and kissed him two or three times.
Laughingly, half-resisting, the young man waited till her
enthusiastic salutation was over, and with one gloved hand
caressingly on her shoulder, and with the other smoothing
his ruflled moustache, he laughed a little more, a quiet
low laugh.
"Yes, Radie, you see I've found you out;" and his
eye wandered, still smiling oddly, over the front of her
quaint habitation.
"And how have you been, Radie?"
"Oh, very well. No life like a gardener's—-early
hours, work, air, and plenty of quiet." And the young
lady laughed.
"And what do you call this place?"
"' The Happy Valley,' /call it. Don't you remem-
ber ' Rasselas?'"
"No," he said, looking round him; "I don't think I
was ever there."