banner had been upheld in the heats of battle, amid the rout of
cowards.

I ask of you, young girls--I do not mean _you_ whose heart is
that of an old coxcomb, though your looks have not yet lost their
sunny tinge. Not of you whose whole character is tainted with vanity,
inherited or taught, who have early learned the love of coquettish
excitement, and whose eyes rove restlessly in search of a "conquest"
or a "beau;" you who are ashamed _not_ to be seen by others the
mark of the most contemptuous flattery or injurious desire. To such I
do not speak. But to thee, maiden, who, if not so fair, art yet of
that unpolluted nature which Milton saw when he dreamed of Comus and
the Paradise. Thou, child of an unprofaned wedlock, brought up amid
the teachings of the woods and fields, kept fancy-free by useful
employment and a free flight into the heaven of thought, loving to
please only those whom thou wouldst not be ashamed to love; I ask of
thee, whose cheek has not forgotten its blush nor thy heart its
lark-like hopes, if he whom thou mayest hope the Father will send
thee, as the companion of life's toils and joys, is not to thy thought
pure? Is not manliness to thy thought purity, not lawlessness? Can his
lips speak falsely? Can he do, in secret, what he could not avow to
the mother that bore him? O say, dost thou not look for a heart free,
open as thine own, all whose thoughts may be avowed, incapable of
wronging the innocent, or still further degrading the fallen--a man,
in short, in whom brute nature is entirely subject to the impulses of
his better self?

Yes! it was thus that thou didst hope; for I have many, many times
seen the image of a future life, of a destined spouse, painted on the
tablets of a virgin heart.