The eye might doubt if it were well awake, She seemed so like a vision.
Amiability and kindness were the prominent traits of her character, accompanied with the other female graces. Of a most delicate and acute sensibility, she was keenly alive to the slightest insult, and would repel it in a firm and dignified manner; but was ever ready to pour the balm of reconciliation into a wound mistakenly inflicted. She carefully forebore to speak disrespectfully of any one, and always endeavored to place their conduct in the fairest light, which sprang from the pure benevolence of her heart. And yet withal, she had no little of the pride of her sex, ready to tear herself from a heart where she had reason to believe she reigned not sole empress; slightly imbued with jealousy, which is frequently a concomitant of the most ardent and devoted attachment, as the deadly viper oft lays encoiled under the bed of violets upon which we are tempted to repose. From the small stock of substantial literature which her father's poorly filled book case afforded, she had cultivated her mind to a degree which thousands fail to do who have _skimmed_ over an Alexandrian library.
Let no one deem these portraitures exaggerated in any respect, for these families were among the most respectable and intelligent on the eastern shores of the Old Dominion; but the barrenness of their sandy plains yielded them but a small quantum of what was necessary to sustain them in their high and expensive mode of living. They found that vast retrenchments were to be made, or they must experience the pinchings of poverty; and, too proud to endure the mortification of either in the midst of their old associates and visiters, they determined to emigrate to the west, where the rich soil affords, with but little labor, abundance of the necessaries of life, while the woods and rivers furnish many of its luxuries.
The parents of Charles and Eliza themselves, had marked with satisfaction and pleasure their growing attachment, and failed not by evidences of approbation to encourage it. And for _once_ the designs of prudent parents and the inclinations of inconsiderate, confiding youths coincided, and promised to result in the happiest of consequences. Would that it _could_ be always so! How many gray hairs would it save from going down to the grave loaded with a weight of sorrow! how many tender hearts would it preserve from an early and hopeless blight! How many lovely and interesting females would it save from tortures worse than the fabled one, of being linked to dead bodies, those of being wedded to rich fools, or sots, or knaves, upon whom they can never place their affections, and whom they frequently hate from their inmost hearts.