The Nobility of the Heart

THE NOBILITY OF THE HEART: A NOVEL. _____________________ BY ELIZABETH ISABELLA SPENCE, AUTHOR OF HELEN SINCLAIR. _____________________ For Fortune can depress, or can advance: But true Nobility is of the mind, Not giv’n by Chance, and not to Chance resign’d. DRYDEN. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1805. THE NOBILITY OF THE HEART. CHAP. I. No friend’s complaint, no kind domestic tear, Pleas’d thy pale ghost or grac’d thy mournful bier; By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos’d, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos’d; By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d, By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d. POPE. TEN years had now elapsed since the inhabitants of a small cottage on the borders of the New Forest, were one night, in the middle of December, alarmed at a late hour by a person loudly knocking for admittance. He was habited as a postilion, and supported a sick traveller who was unable to pursue his journey. On Gerard’s opening the door, he perceived the paleness of death on the countenance of the stranger, who, overcome by illness and the intense cold, was quite insensible. He had along with him a little girl of about four years old, whom Gerard’s benevolent wife gently took in her arms and put to bed. The gentleman lingered only a few hours after his arrival, and expired, supported in his last moments by Gerard and Agatha. On the close of the melancholy scene, they asked the post-boy a thousand questions about the stranger. The postilion merely replied, “I brought the gentleman from Southampton, and was to carry him to the next stage, when night coming on, his servant rode forward to trace the road, and we soon lost sight of him in the deep snow which had fallen. I could not reach Lyndhurst without hazarding my life, and stopt the chaise to ask leave to get a guide at the house I saw at a distance, by a light glimmering through the trees. To the request I received no answer; and therefore I drove to the spot where the light came from, which proved to be your house. On opening the chaise door I found the passenger insensible, and the little girl, who rested her head on his shoulder, asleep.” Gerard and Agatha wept at the narrative. The beautiful countenance of the sleeping infant had interested them greatly. Her now forlorn situation touched their hearts; and they each declared if no one owned her, she should not want a home such as they had to give her, while they pressed her to their bosoms and kissed her rosy cheeks. The post-boy staid until the next morning. He was an indifferent spectator of what had happened, and was now anxious to be gone. On examining the pockets of the deceased a purse was found containing a few guineas with some silver, which more than defrayed the expence of the chaise. In the portmanteau there was a pocket-book containing bank notes to the amount of two hundred pounds, but not a single letter nor memorandum that could lead to the smallest discovery who the stranger was. His watch was a gold repeater; and affixed to the chain were two seals, one having a coat of arms with a coronet above it, the other a fine cornelian with a head. The trunk containing his linen was marked A. the child’s A.C. both of the finest materials. There was round the neck of the deceased the miniature of a lady, set with brilliants: on the other side of the picture was hair with the cypher A.G. also in brilliants.─Much wonder was excited in the good people who the gentleman could be. Certainly he was a person of condition : and after a long conversation, they agreed to write an advertisement, which was immediately inserted in a London newspaper. No inquiries, however, about the gentleman or the little girl, were ever made. The child, who cried very bitterly, for the first few days, for papa and nurse, could give them no information, except, “that they had come a long way over the sea in a house they called a ship. Poor dear papa had been very sick, and nurse had been so naughty as to leave her─but that she was papa’s own Angelica, and would be nobody’s else.” From this account they would have concluded the deceased to have been a foreigner, had not the little girl spoke English; but what name she bore they could not make out, her articulation was so imperfect, except the Christian name of Angelica. Soon amid infantine playfulness and the united caresses of Gerard and Agatha, she forgot the sad calamity which happily her childhood prevented her from feeling in its full extent; and while she daily grew in the affection of her benevolent and humble friends, the last ten years of her life had glided on with them in that enviable state so beautifully described by a French author : “Quel age heureux qui celui où le moment présent est tout, où l’on en jouit avec transport, sans souvenir du passé, et sans crainte pour l’avenir.” CHAP.II. How happy in his low degree, How rich in humble poverty is he, Who leads a happy life. FRANCIS’ HORACE. A FEW miles from the small town of Lyndhurst, in the skirts of the New Forest, embosomed in one of its green recesses, the cottage of Gerard stood. A neat paling only divided his garden from the boundless extent of wood that hung its wild luxuriance around it; while the neatness and plenty that reigned within proclaimed Agatha to be an excellent housewife. Gerard had been a serjeant in the late American war; and, after bravely serving his country, returned to spend the evening of his days with a wife, in the simplicity of whose manners and guileless heart, he experienced the tranquil joy of domestic peace. He employed himself in the cultivation of his garden, together with a little of farming, which proved an amusement as well as a benefit. The dairy of Agatha was famed for its excellence, and she was much beloved in the neighbourhood for her benevolent heart, and goodness to the very indigent poor. Such were the foster parents of the little girl, whom chance had consigned to their immediate protection. Every year Angelica improved in those graces which even their humble cottage could not hide, and while health glowed on her cheek, the superior graces of her mind shone, uncultivated as they were, in every action of her life. Gerard, who taught her to read, write, and account, was so delighted with the progress she made, he declared she would be a fine scholar. Agatha instructed her in needlework; but beyond those common accomplishments she was indebted to her own capacity in the early taste she discovered for music and drawing. With a naturally lively disposition, blended with infinite good humour, she was unlike other children of her age; for she disliked mixing in their sports. There was a barbarity in their manners, which, without being able to account for, shocked her greatly; and she was happier alone in cultivating a small garden she had planted with flowers, in watching their growth, in decorating her chamber with them, in running after butterflies, in rearing young birds, than in all the amusement any playmates could afford her. But her chief delight consisted in sitting under the shade of some of the old trees in a retired part of the forest, to peruse the different little books she got Gerard to purchase for her from the neighbouring town. He had a few in his possession, consisting of an odd volume or two of the Spectator, the same of Shakespear’s plays, Pilgrim’s Progress, and some magazines, which were sufficient to encourage her partiality for reading. She loved, also, to watch the deer as they bounded over the plain; to listen to the warbling of the thousand birds that formed their concert in the woods; to pluck the wild flowers that grew at every step, to sketch them with her pencil, or to form landscapes from those animated views of nature, which in varied shapes met her eye. Now and then Gerard took her behind him as far as Southampton. On the day she was fourteen, he presented her with a small poney he purchased for her at the fair of Lyndhurst : she was the more delighted with her gift, when he informed her, he intended in the evening to accompany her for a ride to a part of the country she had never seen. It was a fine evening in the middle of June, when emerging from the dark shade of the forest, they entered a green lane, which at the extent of a mile, presented a more open part of the country; and while it displayed the highest cultivation, was infinitely diversified in prospect. At a short distance she now perceived, amid the high trees that nearly concealed it, an immense pile of building, whose ancient, yet noble structure, immediately excited her curiosity; and she asked Gerard, what the place before her was called? “Graffington Abbey.” “Who,” said she, “is the happy owner of that enchanting mansion?” “Not a happy one,” returned Gerard, coldly, “his name is Earl Devaynes. He has had his trials in this world as well as the poorest of us. He sees no company, and has lived a sad solitary life this many a year.

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