Whilst Mr. Somerset was contemplating her graceful figure,
and fine though pale features, Miss Dundas touched his arm, and
smiling satirically, repeated in an affected voice--
"Hail, pensive nun! devout and holy!
Hail, divinest Melancholy!"
"If she be Melancholy," returned Pembroke, "I would forever say
"Hence, unholy Mirth, of Folly born!"
Miss Dundas reddened. She never liked this interesting woman, who was
not only too handsome for competition, but possessed an understanding
that would not tolerate ignorance or presumption. Diana's ill-natured
impertinence having several times received deserved chastisement from
that quarter, she was vexed to the soul when Pembroke closed his
animated response with the question, "Who is she?"
Rather too bitterly for the design on his heart, Miss Dundas iterated
his words, and then answered, "Why, she is crazed. She lives in a
place called Harrowby Abbey, at the top of that hill," continued she,
pointing through the opposite window to a distant rising ground, on
which the moon was shining brightly; "and I am told she frightens the
cottagers out of their wits by her midnight strolls."
Hardly knowing how to credit this wild account, Pembroke asked his
informer if she were serious.
"Never more so. Her eyes are uncommonly wild."
"You must be jesting," returned he; "they seem perfectly reasonable.
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