all the fire of animation; her hair, a rich auburn, added luxuriance to her beauty, and by a natural curl, gave an expression of the greatest innocence to her face; the palest blush of health just tinted her dimpled, fair, and beautifully rounded cheek; and her mouth, adorned by smiles, appeared like the half-blown rose when moistened with the dews of early morn.
Such was Madeline Clermont, who, ignorant of the great world, neither practised its follies, sighed for its pleasures, or dreaded its vices; her highest wish was gratified when she could steal from the brow of her father its usual sadness, and render him for a moment forgetful of his sorrows.
Their house stood on a little eminence, in a deep, romantic, and verdant valley, which wound to a considerable extent between cultivated hills, where the vine spread her treasures to the sun, and the husbandman often gathered a luxuriant harvest;
