One morning, Sir John coming in from his ride, gayly called out to me, as I was reading, "Oh Charles, such a piece of news! The Miss Flams are converted. They have put on tuckers. They were at church twice on Sunday. Blair's Sermons are sent for, and you are the reformer." This ludicrous address reminded Mr. Stanley that Mr. Flam had told him we were all in disgrace for not having called on the ladies, and it was proposed to repair this neglect.

"Now take notice," said Sir John, "if you do not see a new character assumed. Thinking Charles to be a fine man of the town, the modish racket, which indeed is their natural state, was played off, but it did not answer. As they probably, by this time, suspect your character to be somewhat between the Strephon and the Hermit, we shall now, in return, see something between the wood-nymph and the nun, and I shall not wonder if the extravagantly modish Miss Bell

Though I would not attribute the change to the cause assigned by Sir John, yet I confess we found, when we made our visit, no small revolution in Miss Bell Flam. The part of the Arcadian nymph, the reading lady, the lover of retirement, the sentimental admirer of domestic life, the censurer of thoughtless dissipation, was each acted in succession, but so skillfully touched that the shades of each melted in the other without any of those violent transitions which a less experienced actress would have exhibited: Sir John slyly, yet with affected gravity, assisting her to sustain this newly adapted character, which, however, he was sure would last no longer than the visit.

When we returned home, we met the Miss Stanleys in the garden and joined them. "Don't you admire," said Sir John, "the versatility of Miss Bell's genius? You, Charles, are not the first man on whom an assumed fondness for rural delights has been practiced. A friend of mine was drawn in to marry, rather suddenly, a thorough-paced town-bred lady, by her repeated declarations of her passionate fondness for the country, and the rapture she expressed when rural scenery was the subject. All she knew of the country was, that she had now and then been on a party of pleasure at Richmond, in the fine summer months; a great dinner at the Star and Garter, gay company, a bright day, lovely scenery, a dance on the green, a partner to her taste, French horns on the water, altogether constituted a feeling of pleasure from which she had really persuaded herself that she was fond of the country. But when all these concomitants were withdrawn, when she had lost the gay partner, the dance, the horns, the flattery, and the frolic, and nothing was left but her books, her own dull mansion, her domestic employments, and the sober society of her husband, the pastoral vision vanished. She discovered, or rather he discovered, but too late, that the country had not only no charms for her, but that it was a scene of constant ennui and vapid dullness. She languished for the pleasures she had quitted, and he for the comforts he had lost. Opposite inclinations led to opposite pursuits; difference of taste however, needed not to have led to a total disunion, had there been on the part of the lady such a degree of attachment as might have induced a spirit of accommodation, or such a fund of principle as might have taught her the necessity of making those sacrifices which affection, had it existed, would have rendered pleasant, or duty would have made light, had she been early taught self-government."

Lucilla, smiling, said, "she hoped Sir John had a little over-charged the picture." He defended himself by declaring, "he drew from the life, and that from his long observations he could present us with a whole gallery of such portraits." He left me to continue my walk with the two Miss Stanleys.

The more I conversed with Lucilla, the more I saw that good breeding in her was only the outward expression of humility, and not an art employed for the purpose of enabling her to do without it. We continued to converse on the subject of Miss Flam's fondness for the gay world. This introduced a natural expression of my admiration of Miss Stanley's choice of pleasures and pursuits so different from those of most other women of her age.

With the most graceful modesty she said, "Nothing humbles me more than compliments; for when I compare what I hear with what I feel, I find the picture of myself drawn by a flattering friend so utterly unlike the original in my own heart, that I am more sunk by my own consciousness of the want of resemblance, than elated that another has not discovered it. It makes me feel like an imposter. If I contradict this favorable opinion, I am afraid of being accused of affectation; and if I silently swallow it, I am contributing to the deceit of passing for what I am not." This ingenious mode of disclaiming flattery only raised her in my esteem, and the more, as I told her such humble renunciation of praise could only proceed from that inward principle of genuine piety and devout feeling which made so amiable a part of her character.

"How little," said she, "is the human heart known except to him who made it! While a fellow creature may admire our apparent devotion, he who appears to be its object, witnesses the wandering of the heart, which seems to be lifted up to him. He sees it roving to the ends of the earth, busied about any thing rather than himself, running after trifles which would not only dishonor Christian, but would disgrace a child. As to my very virtues, if I dare apply such a word to myself, they sometimes lose their character by not keeping their proper place. They become sins by infringing on higher duties. If I mean to perform an act of devotion, some crude plan of charity forces itself on my mind, and what with trying to drive out one, and to establish the other, I rise dissatisfied and unimproved, and resting my sole hope, not on the duty I have been performing, but on the mercy I have been offending."

I assured her with all the simplicity of truth, and all the sincerity of affection, that this confession only served to raise my opinion of the piety she disclaimed; that such deep consciousness of imperfection, so quick a discernment of the slightest deviation, and such constant vigilance to prevent it, were the truest indications of an humble spirit; and that those who thus carefully guarded themselves against small errors, were in little danger of being betrayed into great ones.

She replied, smiling, that "she should not be so angry with vanity, if it would be contented to keep its proper place among its vices; but her quarrel with it was, that it would mix itself among our virtues, and rob us of their reward."

"Vanity, indeed," replied I, "differs from the other vices in this; they commonly are only opposite to the one contrary virtue, while this vice has a kind of ubiquity, is on the watch to intrude everywhere, and weakens all the virtues which it can not destroy. I believe vanity was the harpy of the ancient poets, which, they tell us, tainted whatever it touched."

"Self-deception is so easy," replied Miss Stanley, "that I am even afraid of highly extolling any good quality, lest I should sit down satisfied with having borne any testimony in its favor, and so rest contented with the praise instead of the practise. Commending a right thing is a cheap substitute for doing it, with which we are too apt to satisfy ourselves."

"There is no mark," I replied, "which more clearly distinguishes that humility which has the love of God for its principle, from its counterfeit—a false and superficial politeness—than that while this last flatters, in order to extort in return more praise than its due, humility, like the divine principle from which it springs, seeketh not even its own."

In answer to some further remark of mine, with an air of infinite modesty, she said, "I have been betrayed, sir, into saying too much. It will, I trust, however, have the good effect of preventing you from thinking better of me than I deserve. In general, I hold it indiscreet to speak of the state of one's mind. I have been taught this piece of prudence by my own indiscretion. I once lamented to a lady the fault of which we have now been speaking, and observed how difficult it was to keep the heart right. She so little understood the nature of this inward corruption, that she told in confidence to two or three friends, that they were all much mistaken in Miss Stanley, for though her character stood so fair with all the world, she had secretly confessed to her that she was a great sinner."

I could not forbear repeating though she had chid me for it before, how much I had been struck with several instances of her indifference to the work, and her superiority to its pleasures. "Do you know," continued she, smiling, "that you are more my enemy than the lady of whom I have been speaking? She only defamed my principles, but you are corrupting them. The world, I believe, is not so much a place as a nature. It is possible to be religious in a court, and worldly in a monastery. I find that the thoughts may be engaged too anxiously about so petty a concern as a little family arrangement; that the mind may be drawn off from better pursuits, and engrossed by things too trivial to name, as much as by objects more apparently wrong. The country is certainly favorable to religion, but it would be hard on the millions who are doomed to live in towns if it were exclusively favorable. Nor must we lay more stress on the accidental circumstance than it deserves. Nay, I almost doubt if it is not too pleasant to be quite safe. An enjoyment which assumes a sober shape may deceive us by making us believe we are practicing a duty when we are only gratifying a taste."

"But do you not think," said I, "that there may be merit in the taste itself? May not a succession of acts, forming a habit, and that habit a good one, induce so sound a way of thinking that it may become difficult to distinguish the duty from the taste, and to separate the principle from the choice? This I really believe to be the case in minds finely wrought and vigilantly watched."

I observed that however delightful the country might be a great part of the year, yet there were a few winter months when I feared it might be dull, though not in the degree Sir John's Richmond lady found it.

With a smile of compassion at my want of taste, she said, "she perceived I was no gardener. To me," added she, "the winter has charms of its own. If I were not afraid of the light habit of introducing Providence on an occasion not sufficiently important, I would say that he seems to reward those who love the country well enough to live in it the whole year, by making the greater part of the winter the busy season for gardening operations. If I happen to be in town a few days only, every sun that shines, every shower that falls, every breeze that blows, seems wasted, because I do not see their effects upon my plants."

"But surely," said I, "the winter at least suspends your enjoyment. There is little pleasure in contemplating vegetation in its torpid state, in surveying

as Cowper describes the winter-shrubbery."

"The pleasure is in the preparation," replied she. "When all appears dead and torpid to you idle spectators, all is secretly at work; nature is busy in preparing her treasures under ground, and art has a hand in the process. When the blossoms of summer are delighting you mere amateurs, then it is that we professional people," added she, laughing, "are really idle. The silent operations of the winter now produce themselves—the canvas of nature is covered—the great Artist has laid on his colors—then we petty agents lay down our implements, and enjoy our leisure in contemplating his work."

I had never known her so communicative; but my pleased attention, instead of drawing her on, led her to check herself. Ph[oe]be, who had been busily employed in trimming a flaunting yellow Azalia, now turned to me and said: "Why it is only the Christmas-month that our labors are suspended, and then we have so much pleasure that we want no business; such in-door festivities and diversions that that dull month is with us the gayest in the year." So saying, she called Lucilla to assist her in tying up the branch of an orange-tree which the wind had broken.

I was going to offer my services when Mrs. Stanley joined us, before I could obtain an answer to my question about these Christmas diversions. A stranger, who had seen me pursuing Mrs. Stanley in her walks, might have supposed not the daughter, but the mother, was the object of my attachment. But with Mrs. Stanley I could always talk of Lucilla, with Lucilla I durst not often talk of herself.

The fond mother and I stood looking with delight on the fair gardeners. When I had admired their alacrity in these innocent pursuits, their fondness for retirement, and their cheerful delight in its pleasures, Mrs. Stanley replied: "Yes, Lucilla is half a nun. She likes the rule, but not the vow. Poor thing! her conscience is so tender that she oftener requires encouragement than restraint. While she was making this plantation, she felt herself so absorbed by it that she came to me one day and said that her gardening work so fascinated her that she found whole hours passed unperceived, and she began to be uneasy by observing that all cares and all duties were suspended while she was disposing beds of carnations, or knots of anemones. Even when she tore herself away, and returned to her employments, her flowers still pursued her, and the improvement of her mind gave way to the cultivation of her geraniums.

"'I am afraid,' said the poor girl, 'that I must really give it up.' I would not hear of this. I would not suffer her to deny herself so pure a pleasure. She then suggested the expedient of limiting her time, and hanging up her watch in the conservatory to keep her within her prescribed bounds. She is so observant of this restriction, that when her allotted time is expired, she forces herself to leave off even in the midst of the most interesting operation. By this limitation a treble end is answered. Her time is saved, self-denial is exercised, and the interest which would languish by protracting the work is kept in fresh vigor."

I told Mrs. Stanley that I had observed her watch hanging in a citron-tree the day I came, but little thought it had a moral meaning. She said it had never been left there since I had been in the house, for fear of causing interrogatories. Here Mrs. Stanley left me to my meditations.

It is wisely ordered that all mortal enjoyments should have some alloy. I never tasted a pleasure since I had been at the Grove, I never witnessed a grace, I never heard related an excellence of Lucilla, without a sigh that my beloved parents did not share my happiness. "How would they," said I, "delight in her delicacy, rejoice in her piety, love her benevolence, her humility, her usefulness! O how do children feel who wound the peace of living parents by an unworthy choice, when not a little of my comfort springs from the certainty that the departed would rejoice in mine! Even from their blessed abode, my grateful heart seems to hear them say, 'This is the creature we would have chosen for thee! This is the creature with whom we shall rejoice with thee through all eternity!'"

Yet such was my inconsistency, that charmed as I was that so young and lovely a woman could be so cheaply pleased, and delighted with that simplicity of taste which made her resemble my favorite heroine of Milton in her amusements, as well as in her domestic pursuits; yet I longed to know what these Christmas diversions, so slightly hinted at, could be, diversions which could reconcile these girls to their absence not only from their green-house, but from London. I could hardly fear indeed to find at Stanley Grove what the newspapers pertly call Private Theatricals. Still I suspected it might be some gay dissipation not quite suited to their general character, nor congenial to their usual amusements. My mother's favorite rule of consistency strongly forced itself on my mind, though I tried to repel the suggestion as unjust and ungenerous.

Of what meannesses will not love be guilty: it drove me to have recourse to my friend Mrs. Comfit to dissipate my doubts. From her I learned that that cold and comfortless season was mitigated at Stanley Grove by several feasts for the poor of different classes and ages. "Then, sir," continued she, "if you could see the blazing fires, and the abundant provisions! The roasting, and the boiling, and the baking! The house is all alive! On those days the drawers and shelves of Miss Lucilla's store-room are completely emptied. 'Tis the most delightful bustle, sir, to see our young ladies tying on the good women's warm cloaks, fitting their caps and aprons, and sending home blankets to the infirm who can not come themselves. The very little ones kneeling down on the ground to try on the poor girls' shoes—even little Miss Celia, and she is so tender—to fit them exactly and not hurt them! Last feast-day, not finding a pair small enough for a poor little girl, she privately slipped off her own and put on the child. It was some time before it was discovered that she herself was without shoes. We are all alive, sir. Parlor, and hall, and kitchen, all is in motion! Books, and business, and walks, and gardening, all are forgot for these few happy days."

How I hated myself for my suspicion! And how I loved the charming creatures who could find in these humble but exhilarating duties an equivalent for the pleasures of the metropolis! "Surely," said I to myself, "my mother would call this consistency, when the amusements of a religious family smack of the same flavor with its business and its duties." My heart was more than easy; it was dilated, while I congratulated myself in the thought that there were young ladies to be found who could spend a winter not only unrepiningly but cheerfully and delightedly in the country.

I am aware that were I to repeat my conversations with Lucilla, I should subject myself to ridicule by recording such cold and spiritless discourse on my own part. But I had not yet declared my attachment. I made it a point of duty not to violate my engagement with Mr. Stanley. I was not addressing declarations, but studying the character of her on whom the happiness of my life was to depend. I had resolved not to show my attachment by any overt act. I confined the expression of my affection to that series of small, quiet attentions, which an accurate judge of the human heart has pronounced to be the surest avenue to a delicate mind. I had, in the mean time, the inexpressible felicity to observe a constant union of feeling, as well as a general consonance of opinion between us. Every sentiment seemed a reciprocation of sympathy, and every look, of intelligence. This unstudied correspondence enchanted me the more as I had always considered that a conformity of tastes was nearly as necessary to conjugal happiness as a conformity of principles.