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Book, page 391 / 484 betrayed her thoughts, Caroline now went forward, blushing. Mrs. Hungerford embraced her with tenderness, and then assuming a cheerful tone, "Your mother and sister wanted to persuade me," said she, "that I should never find my way to you--but I insisted upon it that I could. Had I not the instinct of a true friend to guide me?--So now let me sit down and rest myself on this pretty seat--a very comfortable throne!--and that is saying much for a throne. So these are your territories?" continued she, looking round, and talking with an air of playfulness, to give Caroline time to recover herself. "Why did you never invite me to your garden?--Perhaps, you think me a mere fire-side, arm-chair old woman, dead to all the beauties of nature; but I can assure you that I have, all my life, from principle, cultivated this taste, which I think peculiarly suited to women, salutary not only to their health, but to their happiness and their virtues--their domestic virtues, increasing the interest they take in their homes, heightening those feelings of associated pleasure which extend from persons to places, and which are at once a proof of the strength of early attachments and a security for their continuance to the latest period of life. Our friend, Count Altenberg, was observing to me the other day that we Englishwomen, among our other advantages, from our modes of life, from our spending so many months of the year in the country, have more opportunity of forming and indulging these tastes than is usual among foreign ladies in the same rank of life. Fortunately for us, we are not like Mr. Clay's French countess, or duchess, who declared that she hated innocent pleasures." After mentioning French Clay, Mrs. Hungerford passed to a comparison between him and Count Altenberg. She had met Mr. Clay in town, and disliked him. He is an Englishman only by birth, and a Frenchman only by affectation; Count Altenberg, on the contrary, a foreigner by birth, has all the tastes and principles that make him worthy to be an Englishman. I am convinced that, if he had liberty of choice, he would prefer residing in England to living in any country in the world. Indeed, he expressed that sentiment at parting from us yesterday." "He is gone then," said Caroline. "He is, my love."
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