Rough Recollections of Rambles Abroad and at Home Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 Excerpt: ... enabled her to attend to the former, so that the duties of the school also devolved entirely upon her niece. Neighbours and employers were, however, kind; and such kindness grew more needful as time passed by. Mr. Bligh had meanwhile returned to Combe Wood, a married man; but had been two years a widower ere Ellen and he met. When they did meet, there was no symptom of recognition to excite apprehension of further persecution; and, although he bore no favourable character in the neighbourhood, nothing so unequivocally bad as to render him more than an unpopular man was known; so that the events of former years were almost fogrotten at the cottage, when an incident occurred to recall them. Ellen had seen her aunt to bed, one summer's evening j and at her earnest desire, sallied out to take a short ramble. It was one of those beautiful evenings in June when the sultry heat of the day, yielding to the approaching coolness of night, leaves, as it were, an atmosphere of repose over creation. Shunning the common tracks about the hamlet, near which stood the cottage, Ellen pursued a path that led over some waste land to the Hurst road; and, worn out as she felt by the exertions and confinement of the day, she experienced the soothing influence of the exercise, the soli-4 tude, the universal quiet, while her heart bounded with almost the buoyant enjoyment of youth, as she passed along scenes that, ten years before, had beheld her a gay and happy girl of sixteen. The birds were fluttering home to their nests; the bats were flitting about on their quest; gnats were humming in. the air, and that air was enriched by the breath of a furze copse near the pathway, whose every bush was laden with blossoms, from the golden mouths of whieh issued a steam of fragrance, rare ...