Nothing which might tend in the slightest to her
personal improvement had been withheld; and the due feminine grace and
accomplishment which followed these cares fitted the maiden for the most
refined intellectual converse, and for every gentle association. She was
familiar with books; had acquired a large taste for letters; and a vein
of romantic enthusiasm, not uncommon to the southern temperament, and
which she possessed in a considerable degree, was not a little sharpened
and exaggerated by the works which fell into her hands.
Tenderly loved and gently nurtured by her parents, it was at that period
in her life in which their presence and guardianship were most seriously
needed, that she became an orphan; and her future charge necessarily
devolved upon an uncle, between whom and her father, since their early
manhood, but little association of any kind had taken place. The one
looked upon the other as too licentious, if not criminally so, in his
habits and pursuits; he did not know their extent, or dream of their
character, or he had never doubted for an instant; while he, in turn, so
estimated, did not fail to consider and to style his more sedate brother
an inveterate and tedious proser; a dull sermonizer on feelings which he
knew nothing about, and could never understand--one who prosed on to the
end of the chapter, without charm or change, worrying all about him with
exhortations to which they yielded no regard.
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