our birth certainly entitles us; and far from being contented with the mere notice of our family, she shall not think that Lord Belmont acts up to his character of rigid honour if he does not in all respects place us on a footing with our cousins. However my wishes with regard to society may have at times coincided with Fanny's, yet I never could perfectly comprehend what delight figuring in the world, as she calls it, was likely to bestow. Most women, I believe, though educated in the most sequestered solitude, may comprehend with ease the gratification resulting from the devoirs of the agreeable part of the other sex; for this vanity is probably inherent in our natures, and forms a part of our original construction; but habit has made retirement not only agreeable, but so entirely to my taste, that if ever I have it in my power to choose my own way of life, I shall undoubtedly fix in the country; where I would indeed wish my abode to be occasionally enlivened by the company and conversation of a few amiable people of both sexes, (an advantage which we have been almost totally deprived of hitherto); but no enjoyment can I conceive in a promiscuous intercourse, in which the heart has no share. My ideas of life (is not that your phraze my Sophia? who was ever much offended at the seclusion in which we were retained), have been imbibed wholly from my dear father, who indeed found it a path strewed with briars, and who, to render us contented with the plan he had adopted, laboured to represent the world in its least alluring point of view, as fraught with snares, treachery, and crimes, where innocence was continually exposed to danger, and where friendship was almost unknown. That I have not given implicit faith to this account is entirely owing to my Sophia's livelier picture of society; who, placed in a happier sphere, feels not nor dreaded the evils which have been perpetually placed before our eyes. The two years I spent in the convent, (the remembrance of which I ever bless, as it first introduced to my heart the knowledge of these soft, interesting, and endearing ties of friendship, which never, my Sophia, shall time or absence diminish) could not fail to assist my father's wishes on this head. Is it not singular, however, that having been fostered by the same hand, and reared on the same plan, Fanny's ideas and mine should prove so little similar; and that the prospect of leaving France and changing our mode of life,