I know not whether, like the champion of an old ballad,--
His heart was all on honour bent,
He could not stoop to love;
No lady in the land had power
His frozen heart to move;
or whether the deep and flaming bars of embroidered gold, which now
fenced his breast, defied the artillery of Cecilia's eyes; but every
arrow was launched at him in vain.
Yet did I mark where Cupid's shaft did light;
It lighted not on little western flower,
But on bold yeoman, flower of all the west,
Hight Jonas Culbertfield, the steward's son.
Craving pardon for my heroics (which I am unable in certain cases to
resist giving way to), it is a melancholy fact, that my history must here
take leave of the fair Cecilia, who, like many a daughter of Eve, after
the departure of Edward, and the dissipation of certain idle visions
which she had adopted, quietly contented herself with a pisaller, and
gave her hand, at the distance of six months, to the aforesaid Jonas, son
of the Baronet's steward, and heir (no unfertile prospect) to a steward's
fortune, besides the snug probability of succeeding to his father's
office.
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