Morning was breaking over the landscape; a cool, refreshing breeze, laden with woodland sweets and wild birds' songs, softly kissed Mildred's cheek and awoke her.

She started up with a low exclamation of delight, sprang to the open window, and kneeling there with her elbow on the sill and her cheek in her hand, feasted her eyes upon the beauty of the scene—a grand panorama of wooded hills, falling waters, wild glens and forests and craggy mountains, above whose lofty summits the east was glowing with crimson and gold.