With her
friends she is always cheerful, and apparently
happy, though the innocent gaiety of her childhood
is sensibly checked, and there are moments that
betray the existence of a grief that is only the more
durable, because it is less violent. In short, she
lives a pattern for her sex, unfettered by any
romantic and foolish pledges, discharging all the
natural duties of her years and station in an
exemplary manner, but unwilling to incur any new
ones, because she has but one heart, and that was
long since given with its purity, sincerity, and truth,
to him who is dead, and can never become the
property of another.
When Charlotte Henley dies, although she may not
have fulfilled one of the principal objects of her
being, by becoming a mother, her example will
survive her; and those who study her character and
integrity of feeling, will find enough to teach them
what properties are the most valuable in forming
that sacred character--while her own sex can learn
that, though in the case of Miss Henley, Providence
has denied the full exercise of her excellences, it
has at the same time rendered her a striking
instance of female dignity, by exhibiting to the
world the difference between affection and caprice,
and by shewing how much imagination is inferior to
Heart.
End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Tales for Fifteen, by James F. Cooper
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