and conceal--unless, as in the case of Margaret Cooper, the individual
herself was without due consciousness of their presence. It had the
effect of discouraging and driving from her side many a good-natured
damsel, who would have loved to condole with her, and might have
been a pleasant companion. The young women regarded her with some
dislike in consequence of her self-imposed isolation--and the
young men with some apprehension. Her very knowledge of books,
which infinitely surpassed that of all her sex within the limits
of Charlemont, was also an object of some alarm. It had been her
fortune, whether well or ill may be a question, to inherit from
her father a collection, not well chosen, upon which her mind had
preyed with an appetite as insatiate as it was undiscriminating.
They had taught her many things, but among these neither wisdom nor
patience was included;--and one of the worst lessons which she had
learned, and which they had contributed in some respects to teach,
was discontent with her condition--a discontent which saddened, if
it did not embitter, her present life, while it left the aspects
of the future painfully doubtful, even to her own eye.

She was fatherless, and had been already taught some of those rude
lessons which painfully teach dependence; but such lessons, which
to most others would have brought submission, only provoked her to
resistance. Her natural impetuosity of disposition, strengthened
by her mother's idolatrous indulgence, increased the haughtiness
of her character; and when, to these influences, we add that
her surviving parent was poor, and suffered from privations which
were unfelt by many of their neighbors, it may be easily conceived
that a temper and mind such as we have described those of Margaret
Cooper--ardent, commanding, and impatient, hourly found occasion,
even in the secluded village where she dwelt, for the exercise of