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.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

One morning I took a ride alone to breakfast at Lady Aston's; Mr. Stanley having expressed a particular desire that I should cultivate the acquaintance of her son. "Sir George is not quite twenty," said he, "and your being a few years older, will make him consider your friendship as an honor to him; I am sure it will be an advantage."

In her own little family circle, I had the pleasure of seeing Lady Aston appear to more advantage than I had yet done. Her understanding is good, and her affections are strong. She had received a too favorable impression of my character from Mr. Stanley, and treated me with as much openness as if I had been his son.

The gentle girls, animated by the spirit of their brother, seemed to derive both happiness and importance from his presence: while the amiable young baronet himself won my affection by his engaging manners, and my esteem by his good sense and his considerable acquirements in every thing which becomes a gentleman.

This visit exemplified a remark I had sometimes made, that shy characters, who from natural timidity are reserved in general society, open themselves with peculiar warmth and frankness to a few select friends, or to an individual of whom they think kindly. A distant manner is not always, as is suspected, the result of a cold heart, or a dull head; nor is gayety necessarily connected with feeling. High animal spirits, though they often evaporate in