Mary Mathews, the young girl who formed the subject of this
conversation, was a strange eccentric creature, more remarkable for the
beauty of her person, and her masculine habits, than for any good
qualities she possessed. Her father rented a small farm, the property of
Colonel Hurdlestone; her mother died while she was yet a child, and her
only brother ran away from following the plough and went to sea.
Mathews was a rude, clownish, matter-of-fact man; he wanted some person
to assist him in looking after the farm, and taking care of the stock;
and he brought up Mary to fill the place of the son he had lost, early
inuring her to take an active part, in those manual labors which were
peculiar to his vocation. Mary was a man in everything but her face and
figure, which were exceedingly soft and feminine; and if her complexion
had not been a little injured by constant exposure to the atmosphere,
she would have been a perfect beauty; and in spite of these
disadvantages she was considered the _belle_ of the village.
Alas! for Mary. Her masculine employments, and constantly associating
with her father's work-people, had destroyed the woman in her heart. She
thought like a man--spoke like a man--acted like a man. The loud clear
voice, and clearer louder laugh, the coarse jest and rude song, grated
painfully on the ear, and appeared unnatural in the highest degree, when
issuing from coral lips, whose perfect contour might have formed a model
for the Venus.
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