After this she daily became calmer, until she was herself again; the beautiful and blushing Mary Evelyn. Yet, think not that the madness had departed! Reason is like a mirror; break it,--you may replace the fragments,--still it is broken. She loved to wander forth along the glen, or into the cave. Her soul was like a harp, which every spirit of Nature could touch. Madness had sublimed many a thought and feeling, until they seemed to hold converse with the spiritual world.--Nature is more personal than is generally thought. She has a soul as well as senses. The latter are the pleasant sights, the sweet fragrance, and the music of voices, but the soul of Nature is that deep internal working every where, whose will operates upon the senses. Have we not felt the throbbing of its pulse of life, and can she live without a soul? Nature, therefore, is earth’s best comforter to the lonely, because she feels and acts--a free agent. Mary Evelyn could now also enjoy the conversation of the miller and his wife. “Miss Evelyn,” Hans once in good humour remarked, “we thought that you never would speak to us. But, as my mother used to observe, ‘persons may carry an egg long in their pocket, and break it at last.’” Whenever Miss Evelyn wished to be alone, she could retire to her own little apartment, which opened into the back of the glen, or wander into the cave, where the various sounds of the brook falling amidst the rocks and cavities, and the notes of the birds, whose nests were there, beguiled her melancholy. Meanwhile active hostilities between the King and Parliament had commenced. The sword had been unsheathed, and blood was already on its edge. Counter acts, threats, and impeachments, ceased, and the field was taken. Lancashire, echoing the voice of Lord Strange, declared for Charles, and engaged in the struggle. A few of the principal towns had been seized upon, and held by the Royalists, in spite of the assaults of the Parliamentary forces; but the latter, under the command of the most able generals, and fresh with the enthusiasm of a new-born liberty, were soon to be successful.