Falkner by Mary Shelley

"After a little explanation, I discovered who my new friends were. The lady and my mother were remotely related; but they had been educated together, and separated only when they married. My mother's death had prevented my knowing that such a relation existed; far less that she took the warmest interest in the son of her earliest friend. Mrs. Rivers had been the poorer of the two, and for a long time considered that her childhood's companion was moving in an elevated sphere of life, while she had married a lieutenant in the navy; and while he was away, attending the duties of his profession, she lived in retirement and economy, in the rustic, low-roofed, yet picturesque and secluded cottage, whose leaf-shrouded casements and flowery lawn even now are before me, and speak of peace. I never call to mind that abode of tranquillity without associating it with the poet's wish: --

'Mine be a cot beside the hill -- A beehive's hum shall sooth my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall shall linger near.'