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privilege to be exempt from attending to mere animal wants.
But in every change goodness and affection can find field for exertion and
display. Among some these changes produced a devotion and sacrifice of self
at once graceful and heroic. It was a sight for the lovers of the human
race to enjoy; to behold, as in ancient times, the patriarchal modes in
which the variety of kindred and friendship fulfilled their duteous and
kindly offices. Youths, nobles of the land, performed for the sake of
mother or sister, the services of menials with amiable cheerfulness. They
went to the river to break the ice, and draw water: they assembled on
foraging expeditions, or axe in hand felled the trees for fuel. The females
received them on their return with the simple and affectionate welcome
known before only to the lowly cottage--a clean hearth and bright fire;
the supper ready cooked by beloved hands; gratitude for the provision for
to-morrow's meal: strange enjoyments for the high-born English, yet they
were now their sole, hard earned, and dearly prized luxuries.
None was more conspicuous for this graceful submission to circumstances,
noble humility, and ingenious fancy to adorn such acts with romantic
colouring, than our own Clara. She saw my despondency, and the aching cares
of Idris. Her perpetual study was to relieve us from labour and to spread
ease and even elegance over our altered mode of life. We still had some
attendants spared by disease, and warmly attached to us. But Clara was
jealous of their services; she would be sole handmaid of Idris, sole
minister to the wants of her little cousins; nothing gave her so much
pleasure as our employing her in this way; she went beyond our desires,
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