The majestic forms and wild energies of Nature that surrounded her from her infancy impressed their character on her mind, communicating to it all their own wildness, and more than their own beauty. Far removed from the pageantry of courts and cities, her infant attention was awakened to spectacles more interesting and more impressive: the misty mountain-top, the ash-fringed precipice, the gleaming cataract, the deep and shadowy glen, and the fantastic magnificence of the mountain clouds. The murmur of the woods, the rush of the winds, and the tumultuous dashing of the torrents, were the first music of her childhood. A fearless wanderer among these romantic solitudes, the spirit of mountain liberty diffused itself through the whole tenor of her feelings, modelled the symmetry of her form, and illumined the expressive but feminine brilliancy of her features: and when she had attained the age at which the mind expands itself to the fascinations of poetry, the muses of Italy became the chosen companions of her wanderings, and nourished a naturally susceptible imagination by conjuring up the splendid visions of chivalry and enchantment in scenes so congenial to their development. It was seldom that the presence of a visitor dispelled the solitude of Melincourt; and the few specimens of the living world with whom its inmates held occasional intercourse were of the usual character of country acquaintance, not calculated to leave behind them any very lively regret, except for the loss of time during the period of their stay. One of these was the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, whom we have already celebrated for his proficiency in the art of exorcising goblins by dint of venison and Madeira. His business in the ghost line had, indeed, declined with the progress of the human understanding, and no part of his vocation was in very high favour with Sir Henry, who, though an unexceptionable moral character, was unhappily not one of the children of grace, in the theological sense of the word: but the vicar, adopting St. Paul’s precept of being all things to all men, found it on this occasion his interest to be liberal; and observing that no man could coerce his opinions, repeated with great complacency the line of Virgil: Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur; though he took especial care that his heterodox concession should not reach the ears of his bishop, who would infallibly have unfrocked him for promulgating a doctrine so subversive of the main pillar of all orthodox establishments.