“So she told me.”
“And she told you true enough. But there, I thought, she was quite wrong; for seeing the girl must, some time or other, speak to men, where was the use of her not learning to do it properly?—Lord, ma’am,” continued Mrs. Smith, addressing herself to Mrs. Ormond, “Lord, ma’am, though it is a sin to be remembering so much of the particularities of the dead, I must say there never was an old lady who had more scrupulosities than the deceased. I verily thought, one day, she would have gone into fits about a picture of a man, that Rachel lit upon by accident, as if a picture had any sense to hurt a body! Now if it had been one of your naked pictures, there might have been some delicacy in her dislike to it; but it was no such thing, but a very proper picture.
“A picture, ma’am, of a young sea-officer, in his full uniform—quite proper, ma’am. It was his mother that left it with me, and I had it always in my own room, and the girl saw it, and was mightily taken with it, being the first thing of the kind she had ever lit upon, and the old lady comes in, and took on, till I verily thought she was crazed. Lord! I really could not but laugh; but I checked myself, when the poor old soul’s eyes filled with tears, which made me know she was thinking of her daughter that was dead. When I thought on the cause of her particularity about Rachel, I could not laugh any more at her strangeness.
“I promised the good lady that day, in case of her death, to take care of her grand-daughter; and I thought in my own mind that, in time to come, if one of my boys should take a fancy to her, I should make no objections, because she was always a good, modest-behaved girl; and, I’m sure, would make a good wife, though too delicate for hard country work; but, as it pleases God to send you, madam, and the good gentleman, to take the charge of her off my hands, I am content it should be so, and I will sell every thing here for her honestly, and bring it to you, madam, for poor Rachel.”
There was nothing that Rachel was anxious to carry away with her but a little bullfinch, of which she was very fond. One, and but one, circumstance about Rachel stopped the current of Clarence Hervey’s imagination, and this, consequently, was excessively disagreeable to him—her name: the name of Rachel he could not endure, and he thought it so unsuited to her, that he could scarcely believe it belonged to her. He consequently resolved to change it as soon as possible. The first time that he beheld her, he was struck with the idea that she resembled the description of Virginia in M. de St. Pierre’s celebrated romance; and by this name he always called her, from the hour that she quitted her cottage.
Mrs. Ormond, the lady whom he had engaged to take care of his Virginia, was a widow, the mother of a gentleman who had been his tutor at college. Her son died, and left her in such narrow circumstances, that she was obliged to apply to her friends for pecuniary assistance.
Mr. Hervey had been liberal in his contributions; from his childhood he had known her worth, and her attachment to him was blended with the most profound respect. She was not a woman of superior abilities, or of much information; but her excellent temper and gentle disposition won affection, though she had not any talents to excite admiration. Mr. Hervey had perfect confidence in her integrity; he believed that she would exactly comply with his directions, and he thought that her want of literature and ingenuity could easily be supplied by his own care and instructions. He took a house for her and his fair pupil at Windsor, and he exacted a solemn promise that she would neither receive nor pay any visits. Virginia was thus secluded from all intercourse with the world: she saw no one but Mrs. Ormond, Clarence Hervey, and Mr. Moreton, an elderly clergyman, whom Mr. Hervey engaged to attend every Sunday to read prayers for them at home. Virginia never expressed the slightest curiosity to see any other persons, or any thing beyond the walls of the garden that belonged to the house in which she lived; her present retirement was not greater than that to which she had long been accustomed, and consequently she did not feel her seclusion from the world as any restraint: with the circumstances that were altered in her situation she seemed neither to be dazzled nor charmed; the objects of convenience or luxury that were new to her she looked upon with indifference; but with any thing that reminded her of her former way of life, and of her grandmother’s cottage, she was delighted.
One day Mr. Hervey asked her, whether she should like better to return to that cottage, or to remain where she was? He trembled for her answer. She innocently replied, “I should like best to go back to the cottage, if you would go with me—but I would rather stay here with you than live there without you.”
Clarence was touched and flattered by this artless answer, and for some time he discovered every day fresh indications, as he thought, of virtue and abilities in his charming pupil. Her indifference to objects of show and ornament appeared to him an indisputable proof of her magnanimity, and of the superiority of her unprejudiced mind. What a difference, thought he, between this child of nature and the frivolous, sophisticated slaves of art!
To try and prove the simplicity of her taste, and the purity of her mind, he once presented to her a pair of diamond earrings and a moss rosebud, and asked her to take whichever she liked best. She eagerly snatched the rose, crying, “Oh! it puts me in mind of the cottage:—how sweet it smells!”