Were seen, and over the salt sea-marsh the shadows of Bergen Heights.
Back and forth from his city work, the lawyer, day by day,
With the press of eager and toiling men, followed his wonted way;
And Hugh,—he dallied with life at home, tending the garden and grounds;
But the mansion longed for a woman’s voice to soften its lonely sounds.
“Hugh,” said Hermann Van Ghelt, at length, “choose for yourself a wife,
Comely, and good, and of birth to match the mother who gave you life.
No words of woman have charmed my ear since last I heard her voice;
And of fairest and proudest maids her son should make a worthy choice.”
But now the young man’s wandering heart from the great world turned away,