I am but a poor country widow's daughter, but was well brought up, and honestly--and when he came to our village my mother was afraid, because he was a gentleman; but when she saw his piety, and how he went to church and sang the psalms and prayed for grace, she let me listen to him." "Did he go to church and sing and pray at first ?" my lady asks.
"'Twas in church he saw me, your ladyship," she was answered.

"He said 'twas his custom to go always when he came to a new place, and that often there he found the most heavenly faces, for 'twas piety and innocence that made a face like to an angel's; and 'twas innocence and virtue stirred his heart to love, and not mere beauty which so fades." "Go on, innocent thing," my lady said; and she turned aside to Anne, flashing from her eyes unseen a great blaze, and speaking in a low and hurried voice.

"God's house," she said--"God's prayers--God's songs of praise--he used them all to break a tender heart, and bring an innocent life to ruin--and yet was he not struck dead ?" Anne hid her face and shuddered.
"He was a gentleman," the poor young thing cried, sobbing--"and I no fit match for him, but that he loved me.

'Tis said love makes all equal; and he said I was the sweetest, innocent young thing, and without me he could not live.

And he told my mother that he was not rich or the fashion now, and had no modish friends or relations to flout any poor beauty he might choose to wed." "And he would marry you ?" my lady's voice broke in.