by the way, that caused Jerry White to say, 'he had too much _Pride_ to attend to the mending of his _soul_.' The jest is lost unless you remember that Hewson had been a cobbler. As to John Milton----" "Touch him not," interrupted Constance; "let not your thoughtless mirth light upon John Milton; there is that about the poet, which made me feel the very first time I saw him, that-- 'Something holy lodges in that breast.' I remember the day well, now more than three years ago, while staying at Hampton Court, (whither your gracious mother had commanded me,) and reading to the Lady Claypole, near the small window of her dressing-room, which opened into the conservatory, one sultry July evening, when the last rays of the golden sun disturbed the sober and to me more touching beauty of the silver night--at last I could no longer see, and closed the volume; your sister, in sweet and gentle voice, stayed me to repeat some passages from the 'Masque of Comus.' How accurately I can call to mind her every tone, as it mingled with the perfume of the myrtle and orange trees, impregnating the air at once with harmony and fragrance. 'So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt; And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind. And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal.'