ABSTRACT
A second fall of snow now rendered the project Althea had formed of enquiring herself after Mrs. Mosely impracticable. In this western county indeed it lay less than in the more eastern, northern, or midland parts of England; but it had drifted so much against the banks and hedges, that the path to the cottage was again for her impassable. – The mild philosophy of the young recluse struggled against the heavy depression which such perfect seclusion, at a season so dreary, could hardly fail to inflict; but her studies were not much calculated to exhilarate her thoughts. – They led her from the detail of public calamity, to its effects on private life; from the misfortunes of the monarch to the consequent miseries of his servants – and the sad consequences of civil war on domestic happiness.
