Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/64

 While I looked at her lovely face, as it was again bathed in tears, which fell fast as she spoke to me, I thought her an angel! so superior did she seem to any human being that I had ever seen. The meekness with which she bore her afflictions, increased my respect; but that one, in the rank of a lady, could have her heart thus touched by grief, appeared to me incomprehensible; for I was then so ignorant as to think, that the sorrows of life were only tasted in their bitterness by those of lowly station.

You, my dear Miss Mary, have doubtless heard enough of the history of your mother's family, to know the sad change of circumstances which she experienced on the death of her parents, an event that had then lately taken place. I was unable to form in my mind any notion of how this change affected her; for to me she appeared to be still placed in a situation so high above all want, as to be most enviable. She had no hard work to do, no