"A Cold, Doubtful Reception This!" Said My Friend, Turning Her Back
To The Wind, And Hiding Her Face In Her Muff.
"This is worse than
Hannah's liberality, and the long, weary walk."
I thought so too, and began to apprehend that our walk had been in
vain, when the lad again appeared, and said that we might walk in,
for his mother was dressed.
Emilia, true to her determination, went no farther than the passage.
In vain were all my entreating looks and mute appeals to her
benevolence and friendship; I was forced to enter alone the
apartment that contained the distressed family.
I felt that I was treading upon sacred ground, for a pitying angel
hovers over the abode of suffering virtue, and hallows all its woes.
On a rude bench, before the fire, sat a lady, between thirty and
forty years of age, dressed in a thin, coloured muslin gown, the
most inappropriate garment for the rigour of the season, but, in all
probability, the only decent one that she retained. A subdued
melancholy looked forth from her large, dark, pensive eyes. She
appeared like one who, having discovered the full extent of her
misery, had proudly steeled her heart to bear it. Her countenance
was very pleasing, and, in early life (but she was still young), she
must have been eminently handsome. Near her, with her head bent
down, and shaded by her thin, slender hand, her slight figure
scarcely covered by her scanty clothing, sat her eldest daughter, a
gentle, sweet-looking girl, who held in her arms a baby brother,
whose destitution she endeavoured to conceal.
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