But dost not see, here,
in the face of her who looketh like a form of stone, traces of a
countenance that is familiar?"
"Thou hast allusion to the consort of Captain Content Heathcote?"
"Truly, to her only. Thou art not, reverend sir, of sufficient residence
at the Wish-Ton-Wish, to remember that lady in her youthfulness. But to
me, the hour when the Captain led his followers into the wilderness,
seemeth but as a morning of the past season. I was then active in limb,
and something idle in reflection and discourse; it was in that journey,
that the woman who is now the mother of my children and I first made
acquaintance. I have seen many comely females in my time, but never did I
look on one so pleasant to the eye, as was the consort of the Captain
until the night of the burning. Thou hast often heard the loss she then
met, and, from that hour, her beauty hath been that of the October leaf
rather than its loveliness in the season of fertility. Now look on the
face of this mourner, and say if there be not here such an image as the
water reflects from the overhanging bush.
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