“My friend!” replied Alonzo, hastily.
“Is he not your friend?” enquired Melissa.
“I beg pardon, madam,” answered he, “my mind was absent.”
“He requested us to present his respects to his friend Alonzo,” said she. Alonzo bowed and turned the conversation.
They walked out and took a winding path which led along pleasant fields by a gliding stream, through a little grove and up a sloping eminence, which commanded an extensive prospect of the surrounding country; Long Island, and the sound between that and the main land, and the opening thereof to the distant ocean.
A soft and silent shower had descended; a thousand transitory gems trembled upon the foliage glittering the western ray.—A bright rainbow sat upon a southern cloud; the light gales whispered among the branches, agitated the young harvest to billowy motion, or waved the tops of the distant deep green forest with majestic grandeur. Flocks, herds, and cottages were scattered over the variegated landscape.
Hills piled on hills, receding, faded from the pursuing eye, mingling with the blue mist which hovered around the extreme verge of the horizon. “This is a most beautiful scene,” said Melissa.
“It is indeed, replied Alonzo; can New-London boast so charming a prospect?”
Melissa. No—yes; indeed I can hardly say. You know, Alonzo, how I am charmed with the rock at the point of the beach.
Alonzo. You told me of the happy hours you had passed at that place. Perhaps the company which attended you there, gave the scenery its highest embellishment.