Page:Female Portrait Gallery.pdf/35

Rh side, still more lonely is the hour when girlhood is on the eve of womanhood. On the horizon like a dewy star, That trembles into lustre."

No man ever enters into the feelings of a woman, let his kindness be what it may; they are too subtle and too delicate for a hand whose grasp is on "life's rougher things." They require that sorrow should find a voice; now the most soothing sympathy is that which guesses the suffering without a question. But Diana Vernon has been brought up by a father, who, whatever might be his affection, has had no time for minute and tender cares. Engaged in dark intrigues, surrounded by dangers, he has been forced to leave his child in situations as dangerous as his own, nay, a thousand times worse—what is an outward to an inward danger? The young and beautiful girl is left to herself—in a wild solitude, like Osbaldistone-hall—with a tutor like Rashleigh.

Take the life of girls in general; how are they cared for from their youth upwards. The nurse, the school, the home circle, environ their early years; they know nothing of real difficulties, or of real cares; and there is an old saying, that a woman's education begins after she is married. Truly, it does, if education be meant to apply to the actual