ound sitting,--so she calls it by
courtesy,--but, in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with her
enormous settlement; as both those Foundations, who, however, are
good-natured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost.
Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when the
walks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Here
she passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a
book,--blest, if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usually
there are some of that brood left behind at these periods,) or stray
Master of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than their
dinner-bell,) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic of
literature. I have seen these shy gownsmen, who truly set but a very
slight value upon female conversation, cast a hawk's eye upon her from
the length of Maudlin Grove, and warily glide off into another
walk,--true monks as they are, and ungently neglecting the delicacies of
her polished converse, for their own perverse and uncommunicating
solitariness!

"Within doors her principal diversion is music, vocal and instrumental,
in both which she is no mean professor. Her voice is wonderfully fine;
but, till I got used to it, I confess it staggered me. It is for all the
world like that of a piping bulfinch, while from her size and stature
you would expect notes to drown the deep organ. The shake, which most
fine singers reserve for the close or cadence, by some unaccountable
flexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through the
composition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps double
motion, like the earth,--running the primary circuit of the tune, and
still revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, when
you are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether new and
surprising.

"The spacious apartment of her outward frame lodgeth a soul in all
respects disproportionate. Of more than mortal make, she evinceth withal
a trembling sensibility, a yielding infirmity of purpose, a quick
susceptibility to reproach, and all the train of diffident and blushing
virtues, which for their habitation usually seek out a feeble frame, an
attenuated and meagre constitution. With more than man's bulk, her
humors and occupations are eminently feminine. She sighs,--being six
foot high. She languisheth,--being two feet wide. She worketh slender
sprigs upon the delicate muslin,--her fi