Y

MORAL AND ENTERTAINING.

PART III.

LETTER I.

To Lady SOPHIA, The sequel of the story of

ROSALINDA.

ou will find me, dear Lady Sophia, in a more gay disposition than when I writ my last letter. Perhaps the fair season has some influence on my temper; the spring is now in its prime, and blooming Nature appears in all her various pride; the fields and groves resound with artless harmony; the linnet and warbling lark invite me often to rise with the fragrant morning; nor am I unwilling to obey the gentle summons, though 'till I came here I had never beheld the rising sun; the sight was as great a novelty to me as a blazing star would have been; the opening dawn was one of the arcana of Nature into which my curiosity had never pried. Indeed, I had read many poetical descriptions of the rosy-fingered Morning unbarring the gates of Light, and decked in golden vestments, beginning her progress over the Eastern hills; but I left Aurora to her rural hours, without the least

inclination to trace her footsteps in the pearly dew. She was no precedent for me; I was too polite to open my eyes at such ungenteel seasons; the sun shone in vain, its beams were useless 'till the modish world appeared.

⚫ But I have now conquered these refinements, and can bear the aukward custom of rising with the fresh morning, and going to bed when the dusky evening closes, or I might keep myself awake while every other intelligent Being on this part of the globe sleeps; when human affairs cease, and the calm creation seems lulled in a peaceful slumber, except Elves and Fairies. I cannot precisely determine what hours they keep; but here is a nurse in the family, who is intimately acquainted, as she says, with these sprightly phantoms; she has been admitted to their moon-light revels, and has led me to many a circle distinguished with perpetual verdure, where they use to dance their light fantastic rounds. Bridget and Joyce, our two dairymaids, add their testimony to the nurse's, and relate their own visionary experience. I am no great infidel; sometimes I believe, and always wish the pretty stories they tell me were true; but I dare not object against any of those relations for fear of being thought a Heathen by the whole village.

My circumstances are now very easy, my mistress is fully persuaded my education has been su

perior to my present station, and treats me more like a sister than a servant. I am under no restraints but those of gratitude and justice, which will not suffer me to be idle where I know myself to be dependent.

For a damsel of quality I can work well enough with my needle; and as this is all my mistress will suffer me to do, I carry my work to some verdant retreat, of which here are great variety in a large garden and wide range of orchard joining to the house. I am delighted with old fashioned bowers covered with woodbine and sweetbrier, and can sit as much at my ease on a bank of camomile shaded with laurel as ever I did in a painted alcove. Maple-trees and box, with bushes of roses, are placed about in a very agreeable disorder; the whole scene appears gay, but wild above rule or

art:

While Nature here

Wantons as in her prime, and plays at will
Her virgin fancies-

Milton.

The orchard joining to it is spacious and fair as the Hesperian inclosures; violets, primroses, and crocus embroider the level green on which you tread; the trees are set in rows, their branches mingle above, and are now in their gaudy blossoms; the birds sit careless on the flowery sprays, and from their little throats pour out a stream of harmony, while fragrant gales refresh the sense, and with

their aromatic breath diffuse gladness to the soul.

Just at the bounds of this luxuriant retreat stands an ancient oak; the extended boughs are a shelter from the mid-day sun, which perhaps your Lady. ship would endure rather than screen your beauty in such a rustic shade. Elysian groves and myr tle bowers are better suited to the delicacy of your imagination; but I am now reconciled to Nature in its greatest negligence, and, seated in this venerable recess, find virtue and liberty the principal springs of human happiness. My hours are here at my own disposal, nor am I obliged to devote them to ceremony or vain amusements I find myself under no necessity to court the impertinent, or flatter the ambitious, nor to do a thousand unreasonable things, for fear of being singular and out of the mode.

The only intimacy I have contracted is with a daughter of the minister of this parish; they call her Sally; her conversation is perfectly innocent and agreeable, and has something in it charming beyond all the specious rules and studied elegance of the beau monde; she has spent her leisure in reading, and has certainly perused all the good books in her father's study, having never opened a page on any subject, but religion, except Argalus and Parthenia. Her preciseness is all natural and unaffected her locks, her words, her whole behaviour, has an air of sanctity; one can hardly believe

her an inhabitant of this world, but rather a native of some more refined and holy region; the sweetness of her countenance, with the surprising beau ty of her whole person, would confirm this thought, if some evidence of morality did not appear in her declining health. She believes herself in a consumption, and talks of dying as calmly as most people talk of going to sleep.

However, this indifference is not, perhaps, entirely the effect of piety; a tender passion seems to have some share in it. Her health began to decline from the time her lover died. He was the son of a neighbouring clergyman; their marriage. was concluded by the consent of both their parents. There had been an innocent tenderness between them from their childhood, and just at the period set to crown their mutual passion, the youth was seised with a fever which ended his life, and left the gentle maid to mourn her disappointed joys.

Since that she has no attachment to this world; all her schemes of happiness are in a future state, on which her whole attention is fixed; and nothing can be more sparkling than her conversation on these subjects. As some people grow dull and morose in talking of religion, it brightens her countenance, gives a vivacity to her thoughts, and heavenly eloquence to her tongue. The beauty of the spangled firmament in a clear summer evening gives her an apparent pleasure. "In a little time," she