is still so docile, so subject to the pervading influence of her father's house, that she declares to Hamlet she has wished for a long time to redeliver his gifts and letters, "of so sweet breath composed." And when we hear her say, "To the noble mind, Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind," we have a glimpse of the interview that was brought on by him when, as she was sewing in her chamber, he forced himself into her presence, in disordered dress, and with a manner as if he would dismiss her from his heart. It wounded and distressed her:-- "Oh, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" It need not seem unnatural that the fair girl is so obsequious to the father's will. We find no mother in the house: she is gone, and the only daughter and only son transfer their love of a mother to the bereaved father, and cling to him with a devotion that includes a special submissiveness. They live very much withdrawn into themselves, and mutually dependent. The gentle daughter consults in her solitude the wishes and humors, even the whims, of the father, whose capacity for giving sound advice she perceives to have greatly aged. She loves to be retired within the old mansion, whose still life suits a maiden shyness. We come upon her sewing in her chamber, thinking of Hamlet. "As patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclos'd," she sits drooping in silence, remembering her lord, but remembering too that, when her father pooh-poohed her talk about the Prince's affection for her, and bade her look out for herself, she sighed and said, "I shall obey, my lord." She is very much absorbed in contriving solace for a lonely father. So, when she learns that he has been killed, and that the blow was dealt by Hamlet, by what freak of accident she cannot understand,--but "a young maid's wits" prove to be "as mortal as an old man's life,"--the daughter suddenly empties every thing out of her heart except affection for the cherished, fatuous old father: her love for Hamlet is spilled out through that rent in the arras, as we can notice when all her pretty, distracted singing yields not a tone that might be an echo of the sweet episode in her poor little life. For otherwise, when madness broke up her maidenly reserve, and permitted us to pry into the dispositions of her soul, we ought to have found there a love for Hamlet as deeply seated as devotion to a father; but it never was so deep, and never had time enough to surmount all other considerations. Therefore the sad wanderings bury the father over and over again, finding a fresh grave for him each time:-- "He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the grave did go, With true-love showers."