Lighting her face as in other years,
Ere shame and sorrow had taught her tears?
He was dead, and the secret of shame and gloom
Lay buried deep in his distant tomb!
No more should she shudder to hear his name,
With a chilling heart and a brow of flame.—C. A. Warfield.
If Allworth Abbey was the most ancient and gloomy, and if the Anchorage was the most commanding and cheerful, assuredly Edenlawn was the most beautiful and delightful estate in the neighborhood of Abbeytown.
The three estates formed a right angle, of which Allworth Abbey was the eastern, Edenlawn the southern, and the Anchorage the western points.
Edenlawn was equi-distant, about three miles from the two.
The mansion was an elegant modern edifice of white stone, in the Grecian order of architecture, crowning the summit of a green and wooded hill that ascended gradually from the banks of the lovely little lake Eden. A wide vista had been opened between the trees from the white front of the mansion down to the clear waters of the lake. This vista was laid out in terraces, with stone steps leading down the centre, from level to level, from the house to the lake. It was adorned with parterres of beautiful flowers, groves of rare shrubs, and groups of fine statues.