Here is the just occasion for
dread."
She would have kept on, but her attention was drawn away by the
remark of a lady who came up at the moment. I left her side and
passed to another part of the room; but her words, tone, and
impressive manner remained with me. I turned my eyes often during
the evening upon her pale, pure face, which seemed like a
transparent veil through which the spirit half revealed itself. How
greatly she had changed in five years! There had been trial and
discipline; and she had come up from them purer for the ordeal. The
flesh had failed; but the spirit had taken on strength and beauty.
"How did Mrs. Montgomery impress you?" said I to my wife, as we sat
down together on our return home.
"As one ready to be translated," she answered. "I was at a loss to
determine which was the most beautiful, she or Blanche."
"You cannot make a comparison between them as to beauty," I
remarked.
"Not as to beauty in the same degree. The beauty of Blanche was
queenly; that of her mother angelic. All things lovely in nature
were collated, and expressed themselves in the younger as she stood
blushing in the ripeness of her charms; while all things lovely in
the soul beamed forth from the countenance of the elder.
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