The Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman As She Should Be, by Mary E. Herbert

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Title: Woman As She Should Be
or, Agnes Wiltshire

Author: Mary E. Herbert

Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15982]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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WOMAN AS SHE SHOULD BE;

OR,

AGNES WILTSHIRE.

BY

MARY E. HERBERT,

AUTHOR OF "AEOLIAN HARP," "SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A HALIFAX BELLE," &c.

I saw her on a nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman, too;
Her household motions light and free,--
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good,
For human nature's daily food,
For transient pleasures, artless wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

--WORDSWORTH.

HALIFAX, N.S.:
PUBLISHED BY MARY E. HERBERT.
1861.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.:
MILES & DILLINGHAM.
Printers and Stereotypers

CHAPTER I.

The Sabbath day was drawing to a close, as Agnes Wiltshire sat at her
chamber window, absorbed in deep and painful thought. The last rays of
the sun lighted up the garden overlooked by the casement,--if garden it
could be called,--a spot that had once been most beautiful, when young
and fair hands plucked the noxious weed, and took delight in nursing
into fairest life, flowers, whose loveliness might well have vied with
any; but, long since, those hands had mouldered into dust, and the spot
lay neglected; yet, in spite of neglect, beautiful still. There was no
enclosure to mark it from the fields beyond, that stretched, far as the
eye could discern, till lost in a rich growth of woods, but a few
ornamental trees and graceful shrubs, with here and there a plot, now
gay, with autumn flowers, alone kept alive, in the heart of the
beholder, a remembrance of its purpose. A quiet scene of rural beauty
it was, and so thought the maiden, as, r