exceed, she drew out his opinions, and stated her own, with so much truth and elegance, that Maria laid down her book, and listened with wondering attention.

In a house where every thing was display, Mabel had never yet found or sought, an opportunity of shewing the talents, which vigilant and miscellaneous reading had richly cultivated. She had infused, rather than spoken, her sentiments, but now, her tongue unloosed by the evident pleasure she was giving, and her mind recalled to old subjects of interest, she spoke as if a sudden spell had wakened her energy.

"I see," said Mr. Morley, after watching, in silence, the flushed cheek and sparkling eye which added emphasis and sincerity to what she said, "I see that you would tell me that 'Honesty is the best policy,' in public as in private life. If there were many women in this world who could enforce this doctrine in the same manner, we should not so often see, the husbands, brothers, and sons, of old England, erring from that golden rule. Cherish such sentiments, for the fountain of the heart should be pure and holy, since the current of the world can so soon soil its waters. I can better excuse an erring practice than an erring principle, for the one may be the result of a thousand strong and bitter temptations, but the other must be the effect of ignorant or wilful wickedness and ingratitude. The good may fall seven times in a day, indeed, but the man of corrupt principle is too low to fall at all. If you feel as you speak, and act as you feel, you are a noble girl, and worthy to be a statesman's wife."

Every word which he uttered with the tone of unquestioned authority, went, like a poisoned sting, to Caroline's heart. She bent over her work, with affected contempt, but she would have given much, if, at that moment, she could have struck him as the Asiatic would a slave. Greatly, too, to her mortification, she saw the side door, which connected the room in which they were sitting, with the drawing-room beyond, open, and Hargrave entered.

"Pardon me, my dear sir," he said, hurrying to Mr. Morley, and taking his hand; "but as I came to meet you, the sound of your voice overpowered me—and, waiting to recover myself, I overheard part of the conversation in which you were engaged."

As he said this, he turned his eyes towards Mabel, perhaps expecting, to see something in her countenance, of the animation expressed by her words; but her face was suffused, as with the brightness of the rose, shrouded by evening dew—her eyes were bent on the ground—and, as if, like that lovely flower, her head were too heavy for her slender neck to support, she bent it also beneath his glance. Could this be the tranquil, self-commanding Mabel, blushing, perhaps, because she perceived, that, while seeking to draw a timid stranger into conversation, she had been insensibly gratifying the same wish, on his part, and had been, unconsciously, displaying her own powers to his observation.

Mr. Morley gently touched the arm of the younger man, who turned round, as if to introduce him to Miss Villars—but, as he did so, the hall-bell again announced a visitor.

"Come, my dear sir," he then said, changing his purpose, "come to my room, before we are inveigled into fashionable talk—I must have you all to myself."

And he dragged rather than led him from the room, just as Mr. Stokes, a sporting gentleman from Gloucestershire, was announced.

Maria started from her lazy position, flung aside her book, and darting to Mabel, snatched the pocket-handkerchief she was hemming from her hand, almost disordering her hair by the violence of the action, and then hurriedly seated herself, as if she had been working. This little diversion, in her favor, was covered by the retreat of the two gentlemen, and the necessary pause at the door, as the one party retreated, and Mr. Stokes entered, whip in hand, with splashed boots, and the dress which most became him, his red hunting coat, which gave point to his blunt, off-hand manners.

Mabel pitied, and struggled, with her accustomed gentleness, to excuse her cousin's rudeness, as she listened to Mr. Stokes's blunt compliment on Maria's needle-work, and his animated account of the chace, from which he had just ridden home.

Some accidental allusion to Gloucestershire soon told him that Mabel was from his native country—and being a great lover of everything that seemed like home, he began talking to her so fast, that she had little need to say anything to help forward the conversation. Maria was evidently annoyed—and Mabel did her best to be silent; but it was an unfortunate afternoon, and seemed destined to make her worse enemies than she had before. Her silence could not be imputed to stupidity by the dullest, who looked in her face; and the squire, charmed with the idea of having made her shy, which he deemed the effect of something in himself, and, at the same time, feeling the charm of retreating beauty, pursued what he deemed an amusing advantage, addressed all his jokes and stories to her, and called for her approval of his quotations from their county dialect, which were so inimitable and so familiar, that she could no longer suppress her smiles. Maria bit her lips to conceal her vexation. True, he laughed just as immoderately over the use she made of the whimsical slang of the day—called her a "funny fellow," and taught her pretty oaths, which, after all, are but a kind of paper currency for sin. Yet, when he spoke to Mabel, he insensibly assumed more respect for himself and her; for few men are so quick at discovering where respect is really due, as those who are the most ready to lay it aside, when in their power to do so.

Maria was shrewd and penetrating. Her self-love had received too many rebuffs in the gay world in which she lived, to blind her to the truth—and she had not listened more than one tedious hour—for the Squire paid long visits—before she discovered that she had made a fatal mistake in his character. She soon perceived that neither the roughness of his manners, nor the random style of his conversation, had left him insensible to the purity of a deep, blue eye, or the magic influence of feminine delicacy and refinement.

And was it to win the heart of such a man that she had so studiously dropped the little she had possessed of feminine reserve, to adopt the coarser and freer manners which she had imagined a sportsman would most admire. She felt the ground was lost, which she had no power to retrieve, and her spirit chafed, with all the bitterness and mortification which those must feel, who have in any way debased themselves to obtain any worldly object, and are conscious of it only when they find themselves disappointed. She would have been still more chagrined could she have divined that nothing but her having so rudely snatched the handkerchief had given a turn to Mabel's thoughts, and prevented her leaving the room, since by doing so, she would have appeared either snubbed or affronted.

Poor Maria! she had never believed herself so near marriage before.

Scarcely had they reached this height of discomfort, when another morning visitor was introduced—Miss Lovelace, with a multitudinous number of light ringlets and narrow flounces. With a nod to Maria, which meant—"I see you are better engaged," she took her seat near the two elder girls, and was soon deep in an account of a charming ball, which she had attended the night before, with which she mixed many hints of her own conquests, together, with her indignation at all the spiteful