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Rh seek if, in the more sheltered portion, the lilies of the valley yet gave promise of blossom. Any traveller riding up the hill, whose winding road in part over-looked the above scene, would have surely lingered, and then gone on his way rejoicing that he had witnessed such happiness.

The softened light of that most beautiful half hour which precedes the sun-set was upon the air, and the huge forms of the old trees flung forwards their gigantic shadows. A few of the central clouds had already begun to redden, and the windows of the distant village shone like gleams of fire through the elms of the boundary hedge. The pleasure ground sloped to the edge of the park-like meadow, and was the admiration of the neighbourhood for the variety and richness of its flowers; and June is the month for an English spring. Dalton Park was one of those old-fashioned houses all corners and angles, associate with the past, and possessing an interest which belongs to no newly built habitation. Not that Dalton Park aspired to the dignity of historical