Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/191

 hair, which flowed in natural ringlets round her neck, was it to have represented the strings that held her heart, must have become as harsh and unphable as the stiffest cord; her large blue eyes, which now seemed to speak the softness of a soul replete with goodness, had they on a sudden, by the irresistible power of a goddess' command, been forced to confess the truth, would have lost all their amiableness, and have looked askew an hundred ways at once, to denote the many little plots she was forming to do mischief; her skin would have become black and hard, as an emblem of her mind; her limbs distorted; and her nails would have been changed into crooked talons, which, however, should have had power to think in such a manner as that the unwary might come near enough, without suspicion, to be got into her clutches. Not a metamorphosis in all Ovid could be more surprising than hers would have been, was this mirror of truth to have been held to her. I have really shuddered with horror as the image my own fancy has presented me; and notwithstanding all her cruelty to me, (nay, what is much more, to my dear Valentine) my indignation never could rise so high as to wish her the punishment to see herself in this glass, unless it could have been means of her amendment.

"She never abused us; but found means to work on our tempers in such a manner, as in my father's sight always to make us appear in the wrong. ShaShe [sic] knew I could not bear the least slight from any one loved without distraction, and therefore she would contrive, by all the methods she could invent, touch me in that tender point, and to raise me into such a height of passion, as might make me behave in a manner to be condemned by my father. Valentine seldom said anything; he bore all with patience; but unless he too would have joined in