Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 1).pdf/49

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kies, yet always lighting right upon their feet, like so many cats!"

"You must resign your demoiselle, as Mr. Riley calls her, for a heroine;" whispered the young lady to Mr. Harleigh. "Her dress is not merely shabby; 'tis vulgar. I have lost all hope of a pretty nun. She can be nothing above a house-maid."

"She is interesting by her solitary situation," he answered, "be she what she may by her rank: and her voice, I think, is singularly pleasing."

"Oh, you must fall in love with her, I suppose, as a thing of course. If, however, she has one atom that is native in her, how will she be choaked by our foggy atmosphere!"

"And has our atmosphere, Elinor, no purifying particles, that, in defiance of its occasional mists, render it salubrious?"

"Oh, I don't mean alone the foggy air that she must inhale; but the foggy souls whom she must see and hear. If