"
"True, lady-bird," replied Hermione; "but the buds that are longest in
blossoming will last the longest in flower. You have seen them in the
garden bloom thrice, but you have seen them fade thrice also; now,
Monna Paula's will remain in blow for ever--they will fear neither
frost nor tempest."
"True, madam," answered Mistress Margaret; "but neither have they life
or odour."
"That, little one," replied the recluse, "is to compare a life
agitated by hope and fear, and chequered with success and
disappointment, and fevered by the effects of love and hatred, a life
of passion and of feeling, saddened and shortened by its exhausting
alternations, to a calm and tranquil existence, animated but by a
sense of duties, and only employed, during its smooth and quiet
course, in the unwearied discharge of them. Is that the moral of your
answer?"
"I do not know, madam," answered Mistress Margaret; "but, of all birds
in the air, I would rather be the lark, that sings while he is
drifting down the summer breeze, than the weathercock that sticks fast
yonder upon his iron perch, and just moves so much as to discharge his
duty, and tell us which way the wind blows."
"Metaphors are no arguments, my pretty maiden," said the Lady
Hermione, smiling.
"I am sorry for that, madam," answered Margaret; "for they are such a
pretty indirect way of telling one's mind when it differs from one's
betters--besides, on this subject there is no end of them, and they
are so civil and becoming withal.
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