If the reader has ever passed along the banks of the Susquehanna, or floated down its waters, he has not failed to admire the beautiful _coves_ which are here and there formed by the bending hills on either side. With a mountain border sweeping round in the shape of a half moon, and the river flowing in a straight line in front, these terrestrial crescents form a series of most charming landscapes. In one of the most charming of them all lived an old gentleman whom we shall call Richard Parkett.
Many years before the period of the following incidents, the wife of Mr. Parkett had died, committing to his care with her dying words, an infant daughter. They called her, after her mother, Lucy; she grew up like a wild flower in her sequestered home, and, at the time we speak of, was just budding into womanhood. And surely no opening rose could be more lovely. The bloom of health was on her cheek; her step was free and elastic as that of the fawn on the neighboring mountain, and her spirits as bounding and joyous as those of the birds which “warbled their native wood-notes wild” around her dwelling.
“My child,” said Mr. Parkett, to her one day, “there is to be an arbitration in the neighborhood to-morrow, to settle some matters in dispute between myself and a neighbor, and we will need you for a witness.”
“Why they will make you swear a terrible oath to tell the truth,” said the old gentleman, smiling affectionately; “and then two or three lawyers will endeavor to puzzle you so as to prevent your doing it.”
“One of them, whose particular business it will be to puzzle you if he can, is a young man named Burton.”
“Burton?—Sidney Burton? He is the young gentleman who called here last winter to see you on business, is he not?”
“Really, you seem to have an excellent memory for young gentlemen’s names.”
Lucy blushed slightly, but made no answer. However, she was much more sober and thoughtful than usual all that day.
The arbitration came on, and Lucy was sworn as a witness. Her story was short and simple, and referred merely to a conversation which she had heard, and about which the parties could not now agree. As Burton was counsel on the other side, he then proceeded to cross-examine her. It was of great importance to his cause that he should shake her confidence in what she had said; and he therefore proceeded (with great delicacy, however) to ply her with an infinite variety of perplexing questions.