life on this
world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence, the
strength which could bear a thousand years of bondage, the vitality
which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, the
unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality,
which, after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive
and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born. Vast was the
heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations, and grand
the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation."

"She coveted an apple, and was cheated by a snake; but you have got such
a hash of Scripture and mythology into your head that there is no making
any sense of you. You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling on
those hills."

"I saw--I now see--a woman-Titan. Her robe of blue air spreads to the
outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as
an avalanche sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of
lightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple
like that horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening. Her
steady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they are deep as lakes,
they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble with the softness of
love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud,
and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers. She
reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are
joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That
Eve is Jehovah's daughter, as Adam was His son."

"She is very vague and visionary. Come, Shirley, we ought to go into
church."

"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in these
days called Nature. I love her--undying, mighty being! Heaven may have
faded from her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is glorious
on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showing
me her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see her and feel as I do, if we
are both silent."

"I will humour your whim; but you will begin talking again ere ten
minutes are over."

Miss Keeldar, on whom the soft excitement of the warm summer evening
seemed working with unwonted power, leaned against an upright headstone;
she fixed her eyes on the deep-burning west, and sank into a pleasurable
trance. Caroline, going a little apart, paced to and fro beneath the
rectory gar