[47] courteous, healthful; a ray of tenderest and blandest light, shining steadily in the sober gloom of that old household! Confirmed Quaker as she is, shrinking from none of the responsibilities and dangers of her profession, and therefore liable at any time to the penalties of prison and whippingpost, under that plain garb and in spite of that ‘certain gravity of look and behavior,’—which, as we have seen, on one occasion awed young Ellwood into silence,—youth, beauty, and refinement assert their prerogatives; love knows no creed; the gay, and titled, and wealthy crowd around her, suing in vain for her favor.
Followed, like the tided moon,‘until he at length comes for whom she was reserved,’ and her name is united with that of one worthy even of her, the world-renowned William Penn. Meantime, one cannot but feel a good degree of sympathy with young Ellwood, her old schoolmate and playmate, placed, as he was, in the same family with her, enjoying her familiar conversation and unreserved confidence, and, as he says, the ‘advantageous opportunities of riding and walking abroad with her, by night as well as by day, without any other company than her maid; for so great, indeed, was the confidence that her mother had in me, that she thought her daughter safe, if I was with her, even from the plots and designs of others upon her.’ So near, and yet, alas! in truth, so distant! The serene and gentle light which shone upon him, in the sweet solitudes of
She moves as calmly on,
