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 honour to that alliance; she sustains a reverse of fortune, which reduces her from every indulgence to every privation, with a calm courage that keeps her always mistress of herself, and enables her to combat evil by labour, misery by industry! And which never has failed her, but in a personal, bosom affliction, that would equally have shaken her fortitude, in the brightest splendour of prosperity!—"

"Hold! hold, you little torment!" interrupted Sir Jaspar. "You don't consider what an artillery my wanton sprites are bringing upon me! My poor gouty fingers are so mumbled and pinched, and tweaked, to hurry me to get at my purse, that I cannot catch hold of it for very tremour!—"

"Oh no, Sir Jaspar, no! What she earns, however hardly and however humbly, she thankfully reaps; but she could only submit to accept alms, if bowed down by age, by malady, or by incapacity for work. Yet this spirit is not pride; 'tis but a strong and refined