N a mood made half of tenderness, and half of laughter, I begin to speak of her: in tenderness, since to name her is a joy; and in laughter, for that I cannot for sheer inability keep the knowledge of her to myself; partly because she had many liegemen and lovers who sung of her aloud to the tell-tale winds before I found my way to her blessed door, but most of all because it would strangely of to appropriate so sweet a thing as her favor, without sharing it with the first comer found . Therefore this delight of mine is no more mine than thine, and his, and theirs, and ours; and who would have it otherwise?  
She dwelt of old in a vale apart from villages, with little society save that of the tanager and the periwinkle-blossom. Such visitors as entered the "piny " that led into her presence, were those only who her truly. She could not harshness and scorn, and they were always gentle; she sat in her as one that broods on mysteries, and they, in sympathy, sat beside her, one by one, and spake ever after with the enthusiasm and the unworldliness of children. But the immaculate stillness which she chose for her has long been . Revellers came from the city to riot in her gardens, and to themselves in her halls. Railway trains thundered hourly over against her hallowed threshold. Often and often, in passing by, you may yet hear the sound of inharmonious voices, and catch a glimpse of her fair downcast brow, as she looks mutely out upon the .
 
Amid this "heavy change" she is unchanged and unchangeable. Her pure was a sharp to our doubting, when we first gathered around her, after the of missing the charm which had made her dear. We had known many of her kindred, and each of them, howsoever lovely, seemed coarsened and cheapened to the sensitive eye, by over-much familiarity with crowds. But our lady moves like Penelope, amid of her false suitors, with thoughts disentangled from their clamor, in forbearance and patience and hope and honor, the depths of her nature evermore unjarred............