generation, nay, even of this, rarely speaks with accuracy and elegance.
But her attention was diverted immediately from the teacher to the face
of the sweet pupil. Women have a quick appreciation of beauty in their
own sex; and women who are themselves beautiful, not the least.
Irresistibly Lady Montfort felt attracted towards that innocent
countenance so lively in its mirth, and yet so softly gay. Sir Isaac,
who had hitherto lain /perdu/, watching the movements of a thrush amidst
a holly-bush, now started up with a bark. Waife rose; Sophy turned half
in flight. The visitors approached.

Here slowly, lingeringly, let fall the curtain. In the frank license of
narrative, years will have rolled away ere the curtain rise again.
Events that may influence a life often date from moments the most serene,
from things that appear as trivial and unnoticeable as the great lady's
visit to the basketmaker's cottage. Which of those lives will that visit
influence hereafter,--the woman's, the child's, the vagrant's? Whose?
Probably little that passes now would aid conjecture, or be a visible
link in the chain of destiny. A few desultory questions; a few guarded
answers; a look or so, a musical syllable or two, exchanged between the
lady and the child; a basket bought, or a promise to call again. Nothing
worth the telling. Be it then untold. View only the scene itself as the
curtain drops reluctantly. The rustic cottage, its garden-door open, and
open its old-fashioned lattice casements. You can see how neat and
cleanly, how eloquent of healthful poverty, how remote from squalid
penury, the whitewashed walls, the homely furniture within. Creepers
lately trained around the doorway; Christmas holly, with berries red
against the window-panes; the bee-hive yonder; a starling, too, outside
the threshold, in its wicker cage; in the background (all the rest of the
neighbouring hamlet out of sight), the church spire tapering away into
the clear blue wintry sky. All has an air of repose, of safety. Close