struck with double force upon her sympathies: she imbibed the
sweet poison, as somebody calls it, of his writings, even to a love
of truth; which, every wise man knows, ought to be left to those
who can get anything by it. The society of children, the beauties
of nature, the solitude of the mountains, became her consolation,
and, by degrees, her delight. The gay society from which she had
been excluded, remained on her memory only as a disagreeable dream.
She imbibed her new monitor's ideas of simplicity of dress,
assimilating her own with that of the peasant-girls in the
neighbourhood: the black hat, the blue gown, the black stockings,
the shoes, tied on the instep.

Pride was, perhaps, at the bottom of the change: she was willing
to impose in some measure on herself, by marking a contemptuous
indifference to the characteristics of the class of society from
which she had fallen.


And with the food of pride sustained her soul
In solitude.


It is true that she somewhat modified the forms of her rustic
dress: to the black hat she added a black feather, to the blue
gown she added a tippet, and a waistband fastened in front with a
silver buckle; she wore her black stockings very smooth and tight
on her ankles, and tied her shoes in tasteful bows, with the nicest
possible ribbon. In this apparel, to which, in winter, she added a
scarlet cloak, she made dreadful havoc among the rustic
mountaineers, many of whom proposed to "keep company" with her in