Page:Duty and Inclination 2.pdf/148

146 now candidly, whether, in your religious range of thought, Edmund has no share."

"Certainly, in association with the Doctor, he has; it is not possible to conceive a mind more sublime, more indued with heavenly goodness, than his."

Scarcely had Rosilia ceased speaking than the delighted Oriana, with heart palpitating, observed Philimore in his approach to the cottage; shortly after, the sisters, mutually cheered and soothed by the short dialogue they had held, descended to meet him.

Sometimes, to diversify amusement, whilst his young friends and their mother were occupied with the needle, Philimore, reaching down a favourite author from the shelf, stocked with well-assorted works, selected passages to read, the most beautiful, tender, and pathetic, in narrative and description, so abundantly to be found in Young, Thomson, and Milton. The latter, it is true, was oftener preferred, perhaps arising from association of feeling influencing the taste; instinctively the pages were thrown open at the Fourth Book.

Philimore possessed by nature a voice full and flexible; but when the soul was engaged, entering into the sublime genius of the author, so replete with tender charity, the pure union and harmony