The form of Sybil Gerard was stamped upon his brain. It
blended with all thoughts; it haunted every object. Who was
this girl, unlike all women whom he had yet encountered, who
spoke with such sweet seriousness of things of such vast
import, but which had never crossed his mind, and with a kind
of mournful majesty bewailed the degradation of her race? The
daughter of the lowly, yet proud of her birth. Not a noble
lady in the land who could boast a mien more complete, and
none of them thus gifted, who possessed withal the fascinating
simplicity that pervaded every gesture and accent of the
daughter of Gerard.
Yes! the daughter of Gerard; the daughter of a workman at a
manufactory. It had not been difficult, after the departure
of Sybil, to extract this information from the garrulous wife
of the weaver. And that father,--he was not unknown to
Egremont. His proud form and generous countenance were still
fresh in the mind's eye of our friend. Not less so his
thoughtful speech; full of knowledge and meditation and
earnest feeling! How much that he had spoken still echoed in
the heart, and rung in the brooding ear of Egremont. And his
friend, too, that pale man with those glittering eyes, who
without affectation, without pedantry, with artlessness on the
contrary and a degree of earnest singleness, had glanced like
a master of philosophy at the loftiest principles of political
science,--was he too a workman? And are these then THE
PEOPLE? If so, thought Egremont, would that I lived more
among them! Compared with their converse, the tattle of our
saloons has in it something humiliating.
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