ver been disturbed by a harsher sound than a sportman's gun. The brothers were to act as seconds.
The parties were all punctual to their appointment. The morning of which they were going to make so unhallowed a use, was a most beautiful one. Nature was in a poetic mood; in a humour to give her votaries an opportunity to diversify her realities with the bright creations of their imaginations. The vapour had diffused itself over the valley, so that from the hill, which was the place of rendezvous, it appeared like a placid lake, that no 'breeze was upon;' from whose bosom rose the green spires of the poplar, rich masses of maple foliage, and the graceful and widely spreading boughs of the elm—
"Jocund day
Stood tip-toe on the misty mountain's top,"
and sent her morning greetings to the white cliffs of the southern mountain,—brightened the mist that filled the deep indenting dells between the verdant heights, resembling them to island hills, and sending such a flood of light upon the western slopes, that they shone as if there had been a thousand streams there rejoicing in the sunbeams. But this appeal of Nature was unheeded and unnoticed by these rash young men. Her sacred volume is a sealed book to those who are inflamed by passion, or degraded by vice.
The ground was marked out, the usual distance prescribed by the seconds, and the principals were
