Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/104

104 her own secret meditations, or relieving her mind of its effects by venting it upon the world in verse. As a correspondent she was never disconsolate; she never "bestowed her tediousness" upon her friends, by taking up her pen in ill-humour. If she had her fits of moroseness, she had them in solitude; for there was no sign of asperity, in speech or writing, in her intercourse with the actual world in which she lived. To how many more persons would she address notes like those already described, expressing strong emotion in acknowledging even trivial service; and thanking them for kindness, as though she were not accustomed to rendering every species of kindness and to making all kinds of sacrifices herself. It was because this was the habit of her life, that she thus felt towards others when she experienced their good will. She always received praise as a tribute that laid her under special obligation to the giver; she could never say or do enough in return for it. She always received justice, not as a light, but as a favour.

was with the name of a being who was thus bent on seizing every occasion of cheerfulness, and every means of generosity, that slander was still occasionally busy in secret. Into the particular circumstances that led to an inquiry, at this period, and after the lapse of years, relative to the origin and diffusion of the scandal of which she