"And I--my joy of life is fled,
My spirit's power, my bosom's glow;
The raven locks that grac'd my head,
Wave in a wreath of snow!
And where the star of youth arose,
I deem'd life's lingering ray should close,
And those lov'd trees my tomb o'ershade,
Beneath whose arching bowers my childhood play'd."
MRS. HEMANS.
I was born in a valley not very remote from the sea. My father had
been a sailor in youth, and some of my earliest recollections are
connected with the history of his adventures, and the recollections
they excited. He had been a boy in the war of the revolution, and had
seen some service in the shipping of that period. Among other scenes
he witnessed, he had been on board the Trumbull, in her action with
the Watt--the hardest-fought naval combat of that war--and he
particularly delighted in relating its incidents. He had been wounded
in the battle, and bore the marks of the injury, in a scar that
slightly disfigured a face, that, without this blemish, would have
been singularly handsome. My mother, after my poor father's death,
always spoke of even this scar as a beauty spot. Agreeably to my own
recollections, the mark scarcely deserved that commendation, as it
gave one side of the face a grim and fierce appearance, particularly
when its owner was displeased.
My father died on the farm on which he was born, and which descended
to him from his great-grandfather, an English emigrant that had
purchased it of the Dutch colonist who had originally cleared it from
the woods. The place was called Clawbonny, which some said was good
Dutch others bad Dutch; and, now and then, a person ventured a
conjecture that it might be Indian. Bonny it was, in one sense at
least, for a lovelier farm there is not on the whole of the wide
surface of the Empire State. What does not always happen in this
wicked, world, it was as good as it was handsome. It consisted of
three hundred and seventy-two acres of first-rate land, either arable,
or of rich river bottom in meadows, and of more than a hundred of
rocky mountain side, that was very tolerably covered with wood. The
first of our family who owned the place had built a substantial
one-story stone house, that bears the date of 1707 on one of its
gables; and to which each of his successors had added a little, until
the whole structure got to resemble a cluster of cottages thrown
together without the least attention to order or regularity. There
were a porch, a front door, and a lawn, however; the latter containing
half a dozen acres of a soil as black as one's hat, and nourishing
eight or ten elms that were scattered about, as if their seeds had
been sown broad-cast. In addition to the trees, and a suitable
garniture of shrubbery, this lawn was coated with a sward that, in the
proper seasons, rivalled all I have read, or imagined, of the emerald
and shorn slopes of the Swiss valleys.
Clawbonny, while it had all the appearance of being the residence of
an affluent agriculturist, had none of the pretension of these later
times. The house had an air of substantial comfort without, an
appearance that its interior in no manner contradicted. The
ceilings, were low, it is true, nor were the rooms particularly large;
but the latter were warm in winter, cool in summer and tidy, neat and
respectable all the year round. Both the parlours had carpets, as had
the passages and all the better bed-rooms; and there were an
old-fashioned chintz settee, well stuffed and cushioned, and curtains
in the "big parlour," as we called the best apartment,--the pretending
name of drawing-room not having reached our valley as far back as the
year 1796, or that in which my recollections of the place, as it then
existed, are the most vivid and distinct.
We had orchards, meadows, and ploughed fields all around us; while the
barns, granaries, styes, and other buildings of the farm, were of
solid stone, like the dwelling, and all in capital condition. In
addition to the place, which he inherited from my grandfather, quite
without any encumbrance, well stocked and supplied with utensils of
all sorts, my father had managed to bring with him from sea some
fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars, which he carefully invested in
mortgages in the county. He got twenty-seven hundred pounds currency
with my mother, similarly bestowed; and, two or three great landed
proprietors, and as many retired merchants from York, excepted,
Captain Wallingford was generally supposed to be one of the stiffest
men in Ulster county. I do not know exactly how true was this report;
though I never saw anything but the abundance of a better sort of
American farm under the paternal roof, and I know that the poor were
never sent away empty-handed. It as true that our wine was made of
currants; but it was delicious, and there was always a sufficient
stock in the cellar to enable us to drink it three or four years
old. My father, however, had a small private collection of his own,
out of which he would occasionally produce a bottle; and I remember to
have heard Governor George Clinton, afterwards, Vice President, who
was an Ulster county man, and who sometimes stopped at Clawbonny in
passing, say that it was excellent East India Madeira. As for clarets,
burgundy, hock and champagne, they were wines then unknown in America,
except on the tables of some of the principal merchants, and, here and
there, on that of some travelled gentleman of an estate larger than
common. When I say that Governor George Clinton used to stop
occasionally, and taste my father's Madeira, I do not wish to boast of
being classed with those who then composed the gentry of the state. To
this, in that day, we could hardly aspire, though the substantial
hereditary property of my family gave us a local consideration that
placed us a good deal above the station of ordinary yeomen. Had we
lived in one of the large towns, our association would unquestionably
have been with those who are usually considered to be one or two
degrees beneath the highest class. These distinctions were much more
marked, immediately after the war of the revolution, than they are
to-day; and they are more marked to-day, even, than all but the most
lucky, or the most meritorious, whichever fortune dignifies, are
willing to allow.
The courtship between my parents occurred while my father was at home,
to be cured of the wounds he had received in the engagement between
the Trumbull and the Watt. I have always supposed this was the moving
cause why my mother fancied that the grim-looking scar on the left
side of my father's face was so particularly becoming. The battle was
fought in June 1780, and my parents were married in the autumn of the
same year. My father did not go to sea again until after my birth,
which took place the very day that Cornwallis capitulated at
Yorktown. These combined events set the young sailor in motion, for he
felt he had a family to provide for, and he wished to make one more
mark on the enemy in return for the beauty-spot his wife so gloried
in. He accordingly got a commission in a privateer, made two or three
fortunate cruises, and was able at the peace to purchase a prize-brig,
which he sailed, as master and owner, until the year 1790, when he was
recalled to the paternal roof by the death of my grandfather. Being
an only son, the captain, as my father was uniformly called, inherited
the land, stock, utensils and crops, as already mentioned; while the
six thousand pounds currency that were "at use," went to my two aunts,
who were thought to be well married, to men in their own class of
life, in adjacent counties.
My father never went to sea after he inherited Clawbonny. From that
time down to the day of his death, he remained on his farm, with the
exception of a single winter passed in Albany as one of the
representatives of the county. In his day, it was a credit to a man
to represent a county, and to hold office under the State; though the
abuse of the elective principle, not to say of the appointing power,
has since brought about so great a change. Then, a member of congress
was _somebody_; now, he is only--a member of congress.
We were but two surviving children, three of the family dying infants,
leaving only my sister Grace and myself to console our mother in her
widowhood. The dire accident which placed her in this, the saddest of
all conditions for a woman who had been a happy wife, occurred in the
year 1794, when I was in my thirteenth year, and Grace was turned of
eleven. It may be well to relate the particulars.
There was a mill, just where the stream that runs through our valley
tumbles down to a level below that on which the farm lies, and empties
itself into a small tributary of the Hudson. This mill was on our
property, and was a source of great convenience and of some profit to
my father. There he ground all the grain that was consumed for
domestic purposes, for several miles around; and the tolls enabled him
to fatten his porkers and beeves, in a way to give both a sort of
established character. In a word, the mill was the concentrating point
for all the products of the farm, there being a little landing on the
margin of the creek that put up from the Hudson, whence a sloop sailed
weekly for town. My father passed half his time about the mill and
landing, superintending his workmen, and particularly giving
directions about the fitting of the sloop, which was his property
also, and about the gear of the mill. He was clever, certainly, and
had made several useful suggestions to the millwright who occasionally
came to examine and repair the works; but he was by no means so
accurate a mechanic as he fancied himself to be. He had invented some
new mode of arresting the movement, and of setting the machinery in
motion when necessary; what it was, I never knew, for it was not named
at Clawbonny after the fatal accident occurred. One day, however, in
order to convince the millwright of the excellence of this
improvement, my father caused the machinery to be stopped, and then
placed his own weight upon the large wheel, in order to manifest the
sense he felt in the security of his invention. He was in the very act
of laughing exultingly at the manner in which the millwright shook his
head at the risk he ran, when the arresting power lost its control of
the machinery, the heavy head of water burst into the buckets, and the
wheel whirled round carrying my unfortunate father with it. I was an
eye-witness of the whole, and saw the face of my parent, as the wheel
turned it from me, still expanded in mirth. There was but one
revolution made, when the wright succeeded in stopping the works. This
brought the great wheel back nearly to its original position, and I
fairly shouted with hysterical delight when I saw my father standing
in his tracks, as it might be, seemingly unhurt. Unhurt he would have
been, though he must have passed a fearful keel-hauling, but for one
circumstance. He had held on to the wheel with the tenacity of a
seaman, since letting go his hold would have thrown him down a cliff
of near a hundred feet in depth, and he actually passed between the
wheel and the planking beneath it unharmed, although there was only an
inch or two to spare; but in rising from this fearful strait, his head
had been driven between a projecting beam and one of the buckets, in a
way to crush one temple in upon the brain. So swift and sudden had
been the whole thing, that, on turning the wheel, his lifeless body
was still inclining on its periphery, retained erect, I believe, in
consequence of some part of his coat getting attached, to the head of
a nail. This was the first serious sorrow of my life. I had always
regarded my father as one of the fixtures of the world; as a part of
the great system of the universe; and had never contemplated his death
as a possible thing. That another revolution might occur, and carry
the country back under the dominion of the British crown, would have
seemed to me far more possible than that my father could die. Bitter
truth now convinced me of the fallacy of such notions.
It was months and months before I ceased to dream of this frightful
scene. At my age, all the feelings were fresh and plastic, and grief
took strong hold of my heart. Grace and I used to look at each other
without speaking, long after the event, the tears starting to my eyes,
and rolling down her cheeks, our emotions being the only
communications between us, but communications that no uttered words
could have made so plain. Even now, I allude to my mother's anguish
with trembling. She was sent for to the house of the miller, where the
body lay, and arrived unapprised of the extent of the evil. Never can
I--never shall I forget the outbreakings of her sorrow, when she
learned the whole of the dreadful truth. She was in fainting fits for
hours, one succeeding another, and then her grief found tongue. There
was no term of endearment that the heart of woman could dictate to her
speech, that was not lavished on the lifeless clay. She called the
dead "her Miles," "her beloved Miles," "her husband," "her own darling
husband," and by such other endearing epithets. Once she seemed as if
resolute to arouse the sleeper from his endless trance, and she said,
solemnly, "_Father_--dear, _dearest_ father!" appealing as
it might be to the parent of her children, the tenderest and most
comprehensive of all woman's terms of endearment--"Father--dear,
dearest father! open your eyes and look upon your babes--your precious
girl, and noble boy! Do not thus shut out their sight for ever!"
But it was in vain. There lay the lifeless corpse, as insensible as if
the spirit of God had never had a dwelling within it. The principal
injury had been received on that much-prized scar; and again and again
did my poor mother kiss both, as if her caresses might yet restore her
husband to life. All would not do. The same evening, the body was
carried to the dwelling, and three days later it was laid in the
church-yard, by the side of three generations of forefathers, at a
distance of only a mile from Clawbonny. That funeral service, too,
made a deep impression on my memory. We had some Church of England
people in the valley; and old Miles Wallingford, the first of the
name, a substantial English franklin, had been influenced in his
choice of a purchase by the fact that one of Queen Anne's churches
stood so near the farm. To that little church, a tiny edifice of
stone, with a high, pointed roof, without steeple, bell, or
vestry-room, had three generations of us been taken to be christened,
and three, including my father, had been taken to be buried.
Excellent, kind-hearted, just-minded Mr. Hardinge read the funeral
service over the man whom his own father had, in the same humble
edifice, christened. Our neighbourhood has much altered of late
years; but, then, few higher than mere labourers dwelt among us, who
had not some sort of hereditary claim to be beloved. So it was with
our clergyman, whose father had been his predecessor, having actually
married my grand-parents. The son had united my father and mother,
and now he was called on to officiate at the funeral obsequies of the
first. Grace and I sobbed as if our hearts would break, the whole
time we were in the church; and my poor, sensitive, nervous little
sister actually shrieked as she heard the sound of the first clod that
fell upon the coffin. Our mother was spared that trying scene, finding
it impossible to support it. She remained at home, on her knees, most
of the day on which the funeral occurred.
Time soothed our sorrows, though my mother, a woman of more than
common sensibility, or, it were better to say of uncommon affections,
never entirely recovered from the effects of her irreparable loss. She
had loved too well, too devotedly, too engrossingly, ever to think of
a second marriage, and lived only to care for the interests of Miles
Wallingford's children. I firmly believe we were more beloved because
we stood in this relation to the deceased, than because we were her
own natural offspring. Her health became gradually undermined, and,
three years after the accident of the mill, Mr. Hardinge laid her at
my father's side. I was now sixteen, and can better describe what
passed during the last days of her existence, than what took place at
the death of her husband. Grace and I were apprised of what was so
likely to occur, quite a month before the fatal moment arrived; and we
were not so much overwhelmed with sudden grief as we had been on the
first great occasion of family sorrow, though we both felt our loss
keenly, and my sister, I think I may almost say, inextinguishably. Mr.
Hardinge had us both brought to the bed-side, to listen to the parting
advice of our dying parent, and to be impressed with a scene that is
always healthful, if rightly improved. "You baptized these two dear
children, good Mr. Hardinge," she said, in a voice that was already
enfeebled by physical decay, "and you signed them with the sign of the
cross, in token of Christ's death for them; and I now ask of your
friendship and pastoral care to see that they are not neglected at the
most critical period of their lives--that when impressions are the
deepest, and yet the most easily made. God will reward all your
kindness to the orphan children of your friends." The excellent
divine, a man who lived more for others than for himself, made the
required promises, and the soul of my mother took its flight in peace.
Neither my sister nor myself grieved as deeply for the loss of this
last of our parents, as we did for that of the first. We had both
seen so many instances of her devout goodness, had been witnesses of
so great a triumph of her faith as to feel an intimate, though silent,
persuasion that her death was merely a passage to a better state of
existence--that it seemed selfish to regret. Still, we wept and
mourned, even while, in one sense, I think we rejoiced. She was
relieved from, much bodily suffering, and I remember, when I went to
take a last look at her beloved face, that I gazed on its calm
serenity with a feeling akin to exultation, as I recollected that pain
could no longer exercise dominion over her frame, and that her spirit
was then dwelling in bliss. Bitter regrets came later, it is true,
and these were fully shared--nay, more than shared--by Grace.
After the death of my father, I had never bethought me of the manner
in which he had disposed of his property. I heard something said of
his will, and gleaned a little, accidentally, of the forms that had
been gone through in proving the instrument, and of obtaining its
probate. Shortly after my mother's death, however, Mr. Hardinge had a
free conversation with both me and Grace on the subject, when we
learned, for the first time, the disposition that had been made. My
father had bequeathed to me the farm, mill, landing, sloop, stock,
utensils, crops, &c. &c., in full property; subject, however, to my
mother's use of the whole until I attained my majority; after which I
was to give her complete possession of a comfortable wing of the
house, which had every convenience for a small family within itself,
certain privileges in the fields, dairy, styes, orchards, meadows,
granaries, &c., and to pay her three hundred pounds currency, per
annum, in money. Grace had four thousand pounds that were "at use,"
and I had all the remainder of the personal property, which yielded
about five hundred dollars a-year. As the farm, sloop, mill, landing,
&c., produced a net annual income of rather more than a thousand
dollars, besides all that was consumed in housekeeping, I was very
well off, in the way of temporal things, for one who had been trained
in habits as simple as those which reigned at Clawbonny.
My father had left Mr. Hardinge the executor, and my mother an
executrix of his will, with survivorship. He had also made the same
provision as respected the guardians. Thus Grace and I became the
wards of the clergyman alone on the death of our last remaining
parent. This was grateful to us both, for we both truly loved this
good man, and, what was more, we loved his children. Of these there
were two of ages corresponding very nearly with our own; Rupert
Hardinge being not quite a year older than I was myself, and Lucy, his
sister, about six months younger than Grace. We were all four
strongly attached to each other, and had been so from infancy,
Mr. Hardinge having had charge of my education as soon as I was taken
from a woman's school.
I cannot say, however, that Rupert Hardinge was ever a boy to give his
father the delight that a studious, well-conducted, considerate and
industrious child, has it so much in his power to yield to his
parent. Of the two, I was much the best scholar, and had been
pronounced by Mr. Hardinge fit to enter college, a twelvemonth before
my mother died; though she declined sending me to Yale, the
institution selected by my father, until my school-fellow was
similarly prepared, it having been her intention to give the
clergyman's son a thorough education, in furtherance of his father's
views of bringing him up to the church. This delay, so well and kindly
meant, had the effect of changing the whole course of my subsequent
life.
My father, it seems, wished to make a lawyer of me, with the natural
desire of seeing me advanced to some honourable position in the
State. But I was averse to anything like serious mental labour, and was
greatly delighted when my mother determined to keep me out of college
a twelvemonth in order that my friend Rupert might be my classmate. It
is true I learned quick, and was fond of reading; but the first I
could not very well help, while the reading I liked was that which
amused, rather than that which instructed me. As for Rupert, though
not absolutely dull, but, on the other hand, absolutely clever in
certain things, he disliked mental labour even more than myself, while
he liked self-restraint of any sort far less. His father was sincerely
pious, and regarded his sacred office with too much reverence to think
of bringing up a "cosset-priest," though he prayed and hoped that his
son's inclinations, under the guidance of Providence, would take that
direction. He seldom spoke on the subject himself, but I ascertained
his wishes through my confidential dialogues with his children. Lucy
seemed delighted with the idea, looking forward to the time when her
brother would officiate in the same desk where her father and
grandfather had now conducted the worship of God for more than half a
century; a period of time that, to us young people, seemed to lead us
back to the dark ages of the country. And all this the dear girl
wished for her brother, in connection with his spiritual rather than
his temporal interests, inasmuch as the living was worth only a
badly-paid salary of one hundred and fifty pounds currency per annum,
together with a small but comfortable rectory, and a glebe of
five-and-twenty acres of very tolerable land, which it was thought no
sin, in that day, for the clergyman to work by means of two male
slaves, whom, with as many females, he had inherited as part of the
chattels of his mother.
I had a dozen slaves also; negroes who, as a race, had been in the
family almost as long as Clawbonny. About half of these blacks were
singularly laborious and useful, viz., four males and three of the
females; but several of the remainder were enjoying _otium_, and
not altogether without _dignitate_, as heir-looms to be fed,
clothed and lodged, for the good, or evil, they had done. There were
some small-fry in our kitchens, too, that used to roll about on the
grass, and munch fruit in the summer, _ad libitum;_ and stand so
close in the chimney-corners in cold weather, that I have often
fancied they must have been, as a legal wit of New York once
pronounced certain eastern coal-mines to be, incombustible. These
negroes all went by the patronymic of Clawbonny, there being among
them Hector Clawbonny, Venus Clawbonny, Caesar Clawbonny, Rose
Clawbonny--who was as black as a crow--Romeo Clawbonny, and Julietta,
commonly called Julee, Clawbonny; who were, with Pharaoh, Potiphar,
Sampson and Nebuchadnezzar, all Clawbonnys in the last resort. Neb, as
the namesake of the herbiferous king of Babylon was called, was about
my own age, and had been a sort of humble playfellow from infancy; and
even now, when it was thought proper to set him about the more serious
toil which was to mark his humble career, I often interfered to call
him away to be my companion with the rod, the fowling-piece, or in the
boat, of which we had one that frequently descended the creek, and
navigated the Hudson for miles at a time, under my command. The lad,
by such means, and through an off-hand friendliness of manner that I
rather think was characteristic of my habits at that day, got to love
me as a brother or comrade. It is not easy to describe the affection
of an attached slave, which has blended with it the pride of a
partisan, the solicitude of a parent, and the blindness of a lover. I
do think Neb had more gratification in believing himself particularly
belonging to Master Miles, than I ever had in any quality or thing I
could call my own. Neb, moreover liked a vagrant life, and greatly
encouraged Rupert and myself in idleness, and a desultory manner of
misspending hours that could never be recalled. The first time I ever
played truant was under the patronage of Neb, who decoyed me away from
my books to go nutting on the mountain stoutly maintaining that
chestnuts were just as good as the spelling-book, or any primer that
could be bought in York.
I have forgotten to mention that the death of my mother, which
occurred in the autumn, brought about an immediate change in the
condition of our domestic economy. Grace was too young, being only
fourteen, to preside over such a household, and I could be of little
use, either in the way of directing or advising. Mr. Hardinge, who had
received a letter to that effect from the dying saint, that was only
put into his hand the day after the funeral, with a view to give her
request the greater weight, rented the rectory, and came to Clawbonny
to live, bringing with him both his children. My mother knew that his
presence would be of the greatest service to the orphans she left
behind her; while the money saved from his own household expenses
might enable this single-minded minister of the altar to lay by a
hundred or two for Lucy, who, at his demise, might otherwise be left
without a penny, as it was then said, cents not having yet come much
into fashion.
This removal gave Grace and me much pleasure, for she was as fond of
Lucy as I was of Rupert, and, to tell the truth, so was I, too. Four
happier young people were not to be found in the State than we thus
became, each and all of us finding in the arrangement exactly the
association which was most agreeable to our feelings. Previously, we
only saw each other every day; now, we saw each other all day. At
night we separated at an early hour, it is true, each having his or
her room; but it was to meet at a still earlier hour the next morning,
and to resume our amusements in company. From study, all of us were
relieved for a month or two, and we wandered through the fields;
nutted, gathered fruit, or saw others gather it as well as the crops,
taking as much exercise as possible in the open air, equally for the
good of our bodies, and the lightening of our spirits.
I do not think vanity, or any feeling connected with self-love,
misleads me, when I say it would have been difficult to find four
young people more likely to attract the attention of a passer-by, than
we four were, in the fall of 1797. As for Rupert Hardinge, he
resembled his mother, and was singularly handsome in face, as well as
graceful in movements. He had a native gentility of air, of which he
knew how to make the most, and a readiness of tongue and a flow of
spirits that rendered him an agreeable, if not a very instructive
companion. I was not ill-looking, myself, though far from possessing
the striking countenance of my young associate. In manliness,
strength and activity, however, I had essentially the advantage over
him, few youths of my age surpassing me in masculine qualities of this
nature, after I had passed my twelfth year. My hair was a dark auburn,
and it was the only thing about my face, perhaps, that would cause a
stranger to notice it; but this hung about my temples and down my neck
in rich ringlets, until frequent applications of the scissors brought
it into something like subjection. It never lost its beauty entirely,
and though now white as snow, it is still admired. But Grace was the
one of the party whose personal appearance would be most likely to
attract attention. Her face beamed with sensibility and feeling, being
one of those countenances on which nature sometimes delights to
impress the mingled radiance, sweetness, truth and sentiment, that men
ascribe to angels. Her hair was lighter than mine; her eyes of a
heavenly blue, all softness and tenderness; her cheeks just of the
tint of the palest of the coloured roses; and her smile so full of
gentleness and feeling, that, again and again, it has controlled my
ruder and more violent emotions, when they were fast getting the
mastery. In form, some persons might have thought Grace, in a slight
degree, too fragile, though her limbs would have been delicate models
for the study of a sculptor.
Lucy, too, had certainly great perfection, particularly in figure;
though in the crowd of beauty that has been so profusely lavished on
the youthful in this country, she would not have been at all remarked
in a large assembly of young American girls. Her face was pleasing
nevertheless; and there was a piquant contrast between the raven
blackness of her hair the deep blue of her eyes, and the dazzling
whiteness of her skin. Her colour, too, was high, and changeful with
her emotions. As for teeth, she had a set that one might have
travelled weeks to meet with their equals; and, though she seemed
totally unconscious of the advantage, she had a natural manner of
showing them, that would have made a far less interesting face
altogether agreeable. Her voice and laugh, too, when happy and free
from care, were joyousness itself.
It would be saying too much, perhaps, to assert that any human being
was ever totally indifferent to his or her personal appearance. Still,
I do not think either of our party, Rupert alone excepted, ever
thought on the subject, unless as it related to others, down to the
period Of which I am now writing. I knew, and saw, and felt that my
sister was far more beautiful than any of the young girls of her age
and condition that I had seen in her society; and I had pleasure and
pride in the fact. I knew that I resembled her in some respects, but I
was never coxcomb enough to imagine I had half her good-looks, even
allowing for difference of sex. My own conceit, so far as I then had
any--plenty of it came, a year or two later--but my own conceit, in
1797, rather ran in the direction of my athletic properties, physical
force, which was unusually great for sixteen, and stature. As for
Rupert, I would not have exchanged these manly qualities for twenty
times his good looks, and a thought of envy never crossed my mind on
the subject. I fancied it might be well enough for a parson to be a
little delicate, and a good deal handsome; but for one who intended to
knock about the world as I had it already in contemplation to do,
strength, health, vigour, courage and activity, were much more to be
desired than beauty.
Lucy I never thought of as handsome at all. I saw she was pleasing;
fancied she was even more so to me than to any one else; and I never
looked upon her sunny, cheerful and yet perfectly feminine face,
without a feeling of security and happiness. As for her honest eyes,
they invariably met my own with an open frankness that said, as
plainly as eyes could say anything, there was nothing to be concealed.