University of Virginia Library

6. CHAP. VI.
WHAT MIGHT BE EXPECTED.

Time now flew on the softest pinions with Rebecca;
every rising day brought increase to her happiness;
the tenderness and affection of Lady Mary hourly
increased; she had discovered in her gentle companion
great taste for music, and a dawning of genius for
drawing.

“These are talents,” said her ladyship, “that ever
afford a fund of innocent amusement to the possessor,

and it is certainly my duty, by cultivating them, to
compensate, in some measure, for the cheerful acquiescense
Rebecca shows to every desire of mine, particularly
in submitting, without repining, to a recluse
life, which most young persons, at her time of life, and
possessed of her beauty and vivacity, would think cruel
in the extreme.”

Lady Mary had received an education befitting her
rank, and had not neglected the means of improving a
very elevated understanding, and a bright natural genius,
by refusing attention to the ample means of cultivation
which fortune held out; on the contrary she
made herself mistress of the fine arts, music and painting,
and to the most delicate and judicious choice of
the works of fancy, she added an extensive knowledge
of history and natural philosophy.

To her, therefore, the cultivation of such a mind as
Rebecca's was a source of the most refined pleasure.
She saw its beauties daily expand under her attentive
care, with the same delight as the lapidary discovers the
crust that envelopes the rough diamond give way to
his labours, and the inestimable jewel assuming a degree
of brilliancy that promises well to reward his industry.

But, though the talents of Rebecca were thus easily
drawn forth, and the rusticity of her manners began to
assume a more polished air, it was impossible to alter the
simplicity and purity of her mind. Whenever her generous
patroness endeavoured to give her some idea of
the manners of the world, she manifested such a degree
of sweet incredibility, when informed of vices of which
she had no idea, and was so ready to frame excuses for
errors of which she imagined few could be guilty, and
none intentionally, that Lady Mary was at length assured
that nothing but experience would convince the
innocent maid, but that every bosom was as free from
guilt and treachery as her own.

“My dear Rebecca,” said she to her one day, “I
will no longer labour to inform you of the vices and follies
of mankind, the total ignorance of which seems to
constitute your chief felicity. Long, my sweet girl,
may you retain that primitive simplicity of heart; it

shall be my care to leave you at my death an independence,
to prevent your charming unsuspecting nature
from buying experience at so dear a rate, as an intercourse
with, or a dependence upon, the smiles of an
unfeeling, misjudging world.”

Thus Lady Mary determined; but, alas! like too
many others, she deferred, adding this codicil to her
will from day to day, till a sudden accident put it intirely
out of her power.

The autumn was now advancing, and Rebecca looked
forward to the time when she should revisit her native
village. “And how will my dear father be delighted,”
said she, “to see and hear my improvements? To be
sure there is no harpsichord in his cottage; but he will
surely come to the Park, and then I will surprise him
by playing some of his favourite airs: my mother too,
I will request Lady Mary to let me give her that piece
of grey lustring she so kindly brought me from town last
week. I will buy her also a new cloak and bonnet,
she will be the gayest of all our neighbours next winter;”
then taking out her port folio, she selected some
of her best drawings, and, in imagination, arranged
them round her father's little rustic parlour.

Lady Mary was that morning gone to Windsor on a
visit to an old acquaintance, and Rebecca, having
amused herself in her own apartment some time, in the
manner already mentioned, at length took up her lute,
and opening a window which looked into a retired part
of the garden, and into which darted the mild rays of
a September's sun. She tuned her instrument, and began
singing the following little song, which she had
learned but a few days before; it was of consequence a
favourite from its novelty more than from its real beauty.

While Rebecca was singing, she had been so intent
on her music, that she had not observed any body enter
the part of the garden to which her window looked;
but on laying down her lute, and turning her eyes that
way, she perceived a young gentleman, in a riding
dress, leaning against a tree, and gazing intently at her.
The natural roses that played on her cheeks were heightened
by this discovery. She arose hastily, and was
going to pull down the window, when the young gentleman
advancing, with a look of the most earnest supplication:

Stay one moment, angelic creature!” said he,
tell me if what I now behold is reality or an il
? Art thou a spirit of light, or the loveliest human
being the earth bears?”

“Sir!” replied Rebecca, with a voice and look of
surprise, “did you speak to me?” and she involuntarily
suspended the hand that was raised to shut the window.

“Oh! speak again, thou fairest of thy sex,” said he,
“Tell me, art thou, indeed, a mortal?”

“To be sure I am,” said Rebecca, smiling; “what
else should I be?”

“And dost thou live here?”

“Sometimes,” replied Rebecca, with more reserve,
beginning to perceive the impropriety she was guilty of
in talking to a stranger.

“And cannot you either descend into the garden, or
suffer me to visit the apartment that contains so much
loveliness?”

“I can do neither,” said Rebecca gravely, and she
again raised her hand to draw down the sash.

“Oh! stay an instant,” said he, “and tell me, all
angel as thou art! Did thy heart ever vibrate with the
soft emotions of love?”

“Sure, sure, it has! else I were ungrateful,” she
replied, innocently.—“I love my parents; I love
my lady: yes, heaven is my witness, how much, how
fervently, I love her!” She laid her hand on her
heart, and raised her eyes, with a look of grateful affection:
“Enchanting simplicity! but do you love
no other?”

“Heaven forbid! I love all mankind.”

“But no one in particular.”

“No.” Her uplifted hand fell from the sash, and
her eyes were cast, first on the young gentleman, then
on the ground.

“Could you love me, sweetest?”

“Methinks not, for you are rudely inquisitive.”

“But you will not hate me?”

“Hate you, Sir! No; you never did me any harm,
and if you had, I know it is my duty to forgive you,
and pray for your happiness.”

“Then you will not think of me with indifference?”

“That would be impossible,” said she, in a softened
accent as she pulled down the window: but he
heard not what she said, and being no longer able to
gaze on her beauties, or listen to her voice, he retired
from the garden in a state of mind by no means enviable.