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                        MYSTERY AND CONFIDENCE:

                              _A TALE._

                        BY ELIZABETH PINCHARD.

                          IN THREE VOLUMES.

                               VOL. I.


    LONDON:
    PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN,
    PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT-STREET, HANOVER-SQUARE,
    AND SOLD BY GEORGE GOLDIE, EDINBURGH,
    AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN.

    1814.

    B. CLARKE, Printer, Well-Street, London.




ADVERTISEMENT.


It having been suggested to the Author of the following Tale, that its
principal event may perhaps be thought somewhat too romantic and
improbable, she begs to observe, that it is founded upon a fact well
known, and not so long past as not to be in the recollection of many
persons now alive, and particularly those in the higher circles.




MYSTERY

AND

CONFIDENCE.




CHAP. I.

    Due westward, fronting to the green,
    A rural portico was seen,
    Where Ellen's hand had taught to twine
    The ivy and Idean vine;
    The clematis, the favor'd flow'r,
    Which boasts the name of virgin's bow'r.

    LADY OF THE LAKE.


At the foot of one of the most romantic mountains in North Wales, about
a mile from the coast of Carnarvonshire, stands the little village of
Llanwyllan: there, amongst trees which seemed coeval with the dwelling,
was a very large farm-house, the residence of Farmer Powis. Its high
chimneys, and neatly white-washed walls, rendered it a pleasing object
to those who travelled on the high-road, about a mile off, which led to
the next market-town, if high-road that might be called which merely
served to facilitate the journies of the neighbouring farmers' wives to
market and back again, or those of the curate, who served the churches
in the immediate vicinity. The hand of native taste had removed a few
branches from the immense trees which shaded this rural dwelling, and by
that means afforded to the inhabitants a view of the road, the spire of
the village church, and two or three natural rills of water, which,
falling from the adjacent hills, increased the beauty of the scene. At
this dwelling a traveller arrived on the evening of a day which had been
intensely hot, in the summer of 18--: the dust