Dinah thought many could and did. "Women depended too much," she said, "on their affections for happiness. Strong and deep affections were almost always disappointed; and, if not, death must come and sever the dearest ties;" and she stooped down and kissed Edith's hand, which she held in hers. Poor Dinah! she little knew how entirely her own heart was bound up in Edith. "But what can we live for, if not for love?" said Edith. "For many things," answered Dinah, in her simple and quiet manner; "to grow better ourselves, and to do good to others; to make sacrifices, and to love _all_ good works." "I should not wish to live, were I to lose my father, and you, and"--Edith paused, and closed her eyes. Dinah drew the curtain, and bid her, softly, "good night." Edith could not sleep. She was reflecting on the fate of the Lady Ursula. With Dinah's assistance, she had begun to solve the mysteries of Providence;[2] "Without, forsaking a too earnest world, To calm the affections, elevate the soul, And consecrate her life to truth and love." [Footnote 2: The story of the Lady Ursula is founded on fact. In the author's youth, the farm of "Long Lane" retained its name, and belonged to the C---- family.] CHAPTER VIII. "A little cottage built of sticks and weeds, In homely wise, and walled with sods around, In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes And wilful want, all careless of her needes; So choosing solitairie to abide. Far from all neighbours." SPENSER. I wish I were a painter, or a poet, to describe a little sheltered nook on the sea-shore, where devotion would retire to worship, love to dwell in thought on the beloved, or sorrow to be soothed to rest. It was a small cove, sheltered on the north by high, overhanging cliffs, that ran out into the ocean in a bold headland. Opposite these rocks the land sloped gently down, and the ocean, lulled to rest, came in like a spent and wearied child, and rippled on a smooth, white sand. The top of the cliff was covered with many-colored shrubbery. The drooping branches of the birch, the sumac, and the aspen, tinted with the rich coloring of autumn, hung half way down the cliff, and were reflected, like a double landscape, in the water. At sunset, the entire glassy surface was burnished with the red and yellow rays of the setting sun; and when the young moon, like a fairy boat, just rested on the surface, it was a scene of beauty that could not be surpassed in any country. Immediately under the cliff, and sheltered like a swallow's nest, was the smallest of human habitations; so dark, and old, and moss-grown, that it seemed a part of the rock against which it rested. It consisted of one room: a door and single pane of glass admitted the light, and the nets hanging around, and an old boat drawn up on the beach, indicated that it was the shelter of a fisherman.