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THE BOROUGH.

PAULO MAJORA CANAMUS.

Virgil.

VOL. IV.

B

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XX.

THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH.

ELLEN ORFORD.

Patience and sorrow strove

Who should express her goodliest.—SHAKSPEARE.

"No charms she now can boast," 't is true,

But other charmers wither too :

"And she is old," the fact I know,

And old will other heroines grow;
But not like them has she been laid,
In ruin'd castle, sore dismay'd;
Where naughty man and ghostly spright

Fill'd her pure mind with awe and dread,
Stalk'd round the room, put out the light,
And shook the curtains round her bed.
No cruel uncle kept her land,

No tyrant father forced her hand;
She had no vixen virgin-aunt,
Without whose aid she could not eat,
And yet who poison'd all her meat,
With gibe and sneer and taunt.
Yet of the heroine she'd a share, —
She saved a lover from despair,
And granted all his wish, in spite
Of what she knew and felt was right:

But, heroine then no more,

She own'd the fault, and wept and pray'd,

And humbly took the parish aid,

And dwelt among the poor.

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The Widow's Cottage Blind Ellen one Hers not the Sorrows or Adventures of Heroines- What these are, first described Deserted Wives; rash Lovers; courageous Damsels in desolated Mansions; in grievous PerplexityThese Evils, however severe, of short Duration Ellen's Story Her Employment in Childhood - First Love; first Adventure; its miserable Termination An Idiot Daughter A Husband- O Care in Business without Success - The Men's Despondency and its Effect - Their Children: how disposed of One particularly unfortunate - Fate of the Daughter Ellen keeps a School and is happy becomes blind: loses her School - Her Consolations.

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