taking care of the stock;
and he brought up Mary to fill the place of the son he had lost, early
inuring her to take an active part, in those manual labors which were
peculiar to his vocation. Mary was a man in everything but her face and
figure, which were exceedingly soft and feminine; and if her complexion
had not been a little injured by constant exposure to the atmosphere,
she would have been a perfect beauty; and in spite of these
disadvantages she was considered the _belle_ of the village.

Alas! for Mary. Her masculine employments, and constantly associating
with her father's work-people, had destroyed the woman in her heart. She
thought like a man--spoke like a man--acted like a man. The loud clear
voice, and clearer louder laugh, the coarse jest and rude song, grated
painfully on the ear, and appeared unnatural in the highest degree, when
issuing from coral lips, whose perfect contour might have formed a model
for the Venus.

Mary knew that she was handsome, and never attempted to conceal from
others her consciousness of the fact; and, as long as her exterior
elicited applause and admiration from the rude clowns who surrounded
her, she cared not for those minor graces of voice and manner which
render beauty so captivating to the refined and well-educated of the
other sex.

In the harvest-field she was always the foremost in the band of reapers;
dressed in her tight green-cloth boddice, clean white apron, red stuff
petticoat, and neatly blacked shoes; her beautiful features shaded by
her large, coarse, flat, straw hat, put knowingly to one side, more
fully to display the luxuriant auburn tresses, of the sunniest hue, that
waved profusely in rich natural curls round her face and neck. In the
hay-field you passed her, with the rake across her shoulder, and turned
in surprise to look at the fair creature, who whistled to her dog, sang
snatches of profane songs, and hallooed to the men in the same breath.
In the evening you met her bringing home her cows from the marshes,
mounted upon her father's grey riding horse; keeping her seat with as
much ease and spirit, although destitute of a side-saddle, as the most
accomplished female equestrian in St. James's Park; and when his
services were no longer required by our young Amazon, she rubbed down
her horse, and turned him adrift with her own hands into the paddock.

To see Mary Mathews to advantage, when the better nature of her
womanhood triumphed over the coarse