door of his heart, and left

not so much as the key-hole uncovered, by which I might have peeped into it; and this in one or two points, that I thought it imported me to know. And then have I been ready to scold.'

Now this reserve to such a sister, and in points that she thinks it imports her to know, is what I do not like in Sir Charles. A friend as well as sister! ought there to be a secret on on• side, when there is none on the other? Very likely, he would be as reserved to a wife: And is not marriage the highest state of friendship that mortals can know? And can friendship and reserve be compatible? Surely, No.
His sister, who cannot think he has one fault, excuses him, and says, that her brother has no other view in drawing her on to reveal her own heart, but the better to know how to serve and oblige her.
But then, might not the same thing be said in behalf of the curiosity of so generous a sister? Or, is Sir Charles so conscious of his own superiority, as to think he can give advice to her, but wants not hers to him? Or, thinks he meanly of our Sex, and highly of his own? Yet there are but two years difference in their age: And from sixteen to twenty-four, I believe women are generally more than two years aforehand with the men in ripeness of understanding; tho', after that time, the men may ripen into a superiority.
This observation is not my own; for I heard a very wise man once say, That the intellects of women usually ripen sooner than those of men; but that those of men, when ripened, like trees of slow growth, generally hold longer, are capable of higher perfection, and serve to nobler purposes.
Sir Charles has seen more of the world, it may be said, than his sister has: He has travelled. But is not human nature the same in every country, allowing only for different customs?—Do not Love, hatred, anger, malice, all the passions in short, good or bad, shew themselves by like effects in the faces, hearts,

and actions of the people of every country? And let men make ever such strong pretensions to knowledge, from their far-fetch'd and dear-bought experience, cannot a penetrating spirit learn as much from the passions of a Sir Hargrave Pollexfen in England, as it could from a man of the