“Surely,” replied Edwin, “I cannot be wholly mistaken. At least has there not a young shepherdess just arrived here, tall, tender and beautiful, and whose flaxen tresses are more bright than gold, and more abundant than the blossoms in the spring?”
Before the officious domestic could reply to his enquiries, two of the nymphs, who had been attired for the feast of Imogen, came into the outer apartment in which the shepherd was, and advanced toward him. “These are my mistresses,” cried the attendant. Edwin approached them with respect, and repeated his former enquiries. They were the most beautiful of the train of Roderic. They were clad in garments of the whitest silk, and profusely adorned with chaplets of flowers. Their appearance therefore was calculated to give them, in a shepherd’s eye, an air of sweetness and simplicity that could not easily be resisted.
One of them was tall and majestic, and the other low, and of a shape and figure the most alluring. This appeared to be like a blossom in May, whose colours discovered to the attentive observer all their attractions, without being expanded to the careless eye: And that might be supposed to be a few summers farther advanced to a delicious maturity. The majesty of the one had nothing in it of the gross, the indelicate, and the forbidding; and the softness of the other was attempered with inexpressible propriety and grace. Both of them were gentle and affable. But the affability of the former took the name of benignity and condescension, and the affability of the latter was full of harmless gaiety, and a cheerful and unpretending spirit of society.
“We cannot,” replied the elder, “attend to your enquiries here. The apartment is comfortless and inhospitable. You appear fatigued. And we pretend not, young stranger, merely to contribute what is in our power to relieve the uneasiness of your mind, we would also refresh your wearied frame. Come in then, and we will afford you every satisfaction we are able. Enter the mansion, and partake of the plenty the Gods have bestowed upon us, and which we desire not to engross to ourselves.” During these words Edwin surveyed his fair entertainers with wonder and admiration. But enchanting as they were, they found not the avenue to his heart. There Imogen reigned alone, and could not admit of a rival. Even though upon a slighter occasion, and at less important moment, the purity of his mind, that virtue so much esteemed among the swains, could have been tainted, yet now that his undertaking whispered him, “Imogen alone is fair!” now that he feared for her safety, and hoped every moment to arrive at the dreaded, pleasing period of his anxiety, he could but be constant and be faithful. He recollected the sage instructions of the Druid of Elwy: and his resolutions were unshaken as the roots of Snowdon.