administer any matter of offence or just cause of complaint to any."

Beautiful and noble maiden! How the imagination fills up this outline
limning by her friend, and, if truth must be told, admirer! Serene,
courteous, healthful; a ray of tenderest and blandest light, shining
steadily in the sober gloom of that old household! Confirmed Quaker as
she is, shrinking from none of the responsibilities and dangers of her
profession, and therefore liable at any time to the penalties of prison
and whipping-post, under that plain garb and in spite of that "certain
gravity of look and behavior,"--which, as we have seen, on one occasion
awed young Ellwood into silence,--youth, beauty, and refinement assert
their prerogatives; love knows no creed; the gay, and titled, and wealthy
crowd around her, suing in vain for her favor.

"Followed, like the tided moon,
She moves as calmly on,"

"until he at length comes for whom she was reserved," and her name is
united with that of one worthy even of her, the world-renowned William
Penn.

Meantime, one cannot but feel a good degree of sympathy with young
Ellwood, her old schoolmate and playmate, placed, as he was, in the same
family with her, enjoying her familiar conversation and unreserved
confidence, and, as he says, the "advantageous opportunities of riding
and walking abroad with her, by night as well as by day, without any
other company than her maid; for so great, indeed, was the confidence
that her mother had in me, that she thought her daughter safe, if I was
with her, even from the plots and designs of others upon her." So near,
and yet, alas! in truth, so distant! The serene and gentle light which
shone upon him, in the sweet solitudes of Chalfont, was that of a star,
itself unapproachable.

As he himself meekly intimates, she was reserved for another. He seems
to have fully understood his own position in respect to her; although, to
use his own words, "others, measuring him by the propensity of their own
inclinations, concluded he would steal her, run away with her, and marry
her." Little did these jealous surmisers know of the true and really
heroic spirit of the young Latin master. His own apology and defence of
his conduct, under circumstances of temptation which St. Anthony himself
could have scarcely better resisted, will not be amiss.

"I was not ignorant of the various fears which filled the jealous heads
of some concerning me, n