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"Thee, hid the bowering vales amidst, I call."
—EURIPIDES: Hel. I. 1116.
Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?—LAMB.
IT was towards the evening of a day in early April that two ladies wereseated by the open windows of a cottage in Devonshire. The lawn beforethem was gay with evergreens, relieved by the first few flowers and freshturf of the reviving spring; and at a distance, through an openingamongst the trees, the sea, blue and tranquil, bounded the view, andcontrasted the more confined and home-like features of the scene. It wasa spot remote, sequestered, shut out from the business and pleasures ofthe world; as such it suited the tastes and character of the owner.
That owner was the younger of the ladies seated by the window. You wouldscarcely have guessed, from her appearance, that she was more than sevenor eight and twenty, though she exceeded by four or five years thatcritical boundary in the life of beauty. Her form was slight anddelicate in its proportions, nor was her countenance the less lovelybecause, from its gentleness and repose (not unmixed with a certainsadness) the coarse and the gay might have thought it wanting inexpression. For there is a stillness in the aspect of those who havefelt deeply, which deceives the common eye,—as rivers are often aliketranquil and profound, in proportion as they are remote from the springswhich agitated and swelled the commencement of their course, and by whichtheir waters are still, though invisibly, supplied.
The elder lady, the guest of her companion, was past seventy; her grayhair was drawn back from the forehead, and gathered under a stiff cap ofquaker-like simplicity; while her dress, rich but plain, and of no verymodern fashion, served to increase the venerable appearance of one whoseemed not ashamed of years.
"My dear Mrs. Leslie," said the lady of the house, after a thoughtfulpause in the conversation that had been carried on for the last hour, "itis very true; perhaps I was to blame in coming to this place; I ought notto have been so selfish."
"No, my dear friend," returned Mrs. Leslie, gently; "selfish is a wordthat can never be applied to you; you acted as became you,—agreeably toyour own instinctive sense of what is best when at your age,—independentin fortune and rank, and still so lovely,—you resigned all that wouldhave attracted others, and devoted yourself, in retirement, to a life ofquiet and unknown benevolence. You are in your sphere in thisvillage,—humble though it be,—consoling, relieving, healing thewretched, the destitute, the infirm; and teaching your Evelyn insensiblyto imitate your modest and Christian virtues." The good old lady spokewarmly, and with tears in her eyes; her companion placed her hand in Mrs.Leslie's.
"You cannot make me vai