sabel. "Has mutability," she would
often say, "entirely usurped the earth? No. Inanimate nature is not
changed; the sun-beams steal through these grated windows at the same
hour this year as they did last. Summer and winter, day and night,
return at stated periods; the animal organs present the same objects,
and excite the usual sensations; nor are my moral feelings altered;
truth and honour continue to delight me; vice and falsehood are as
odious to my soul as if good men still triumphed, and guilt held its
alliance with infamy. Yet are not subjects transformed into traitors and
rebels; lovers forsworn; do not Christians renounce their baptism and
abjure their faith; and is not friendship become a cloak to conceal the
informer and assassin? Whom shall we acquit of inconstancy, if either
Eustace or De Vallance are false? How shall we depicture fidelity and
honour if they dwell not in the open front of heroic candour, or the
mild suavity of undeviating rectitude? Away!--the report of Williams is
a gossip's tale, forged to explain a mystery of their own forming.
Constance, I shall live to arrange your jewels and fold your robe, when
you walk at the coronation as Countess of Bellingham, and you shall be
sponsor to my little Arthur. At least I will cherish these day-dreams,
till I know Cromwell has done a disinterested generous action; I will
then resign you to Monthault, and employ myself in clear-starching and
crimping bands for the conventicle."

Thus rallying her own spirits, and endeavouring to animate the hopes of
others, Isabel contrived to lighten the burden of voluntary captivity,
as she had used to alleviate the hardships of poverty. Her mind, equally
firm and innocent, feared nothing but the reproaches of her conscience
and the despair of her father. Happy in the resources of an active
disposition, she soon convinced Constantia that even confinement does
not proscribe utility. While Dr. Beaumont administered to the spiritual
wants of his fellow-prisoners, Isabel contrived to promote their
comforts, often with the labours of her hand, always by the un-failing
cordial of her hilarity, and sometimes with her slender purse,
cheerfully abridging her own wants to supply the need of others. Nor was
she wholly disinterested in this conduct; she found it the best method
of diverting anxiety and suppressing doubt; of resisting that
misanthropy which a long continuance of adversity is apt to engender in
the tenderest hearts