Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 2).djvu/187

 "Their loss, indeed, is unspeakable;—not content with relieving the objects chance threw in her way, she herself explored the recesses of poverty, and, like a ministering angel from heaven, dispensed charity and compassion wherever she went. She delighted too in contriving little pastimes which should give relaxation to labour, and smiled to see the rough brow of industry smoothed by pleasure, and the peasants sporting on the sod which they had cultivated.

"This morning, as I stood at an upper window, which overlooked the old trees that waved before it, and saw the distant fields already beginning to wear the yellow tinge of Autumn; I recollected the manner in which she had planned to celebrate the conclusion of the ensuing harvest: she was to have given a feast and a dance upon the lawn to all her tenants, and I was to have mixed in the latter with the peasant girls. Alas! little did I think, when she spoke to me about it, that, ere the period destined