To marry a singing girl, and complain she does not keep you a good table, is like eating nightingales, and finding fault that they are not good tasted. They sing, but they are of no further use—to eat them, instead of listening to them, is applying to one sense, the gratification which belongs to another."

In the course of conversation, Miss Sparkes a little shocked the delicate feelings of the ladies, of Lucilla especially, by throwing out some expressions of envy at the superior advantages which men possess for distinguishing themselves. "Women," she said, "with talents not inferior were allowed no stage for display, while men had such a reach for their exertions, such a compass for exercising their genius, such a range for obtaining distinction that they were at once the objects of her envy for the means they possessed, and of her pity for turning them to no better account. There were indeed," she added, "a few men who redeemed the credit of the rest, and for their sakes she gloried, since she could not be of their sex, that she was at least of their species."

"I know, madam," said Mr. Stanley, "your admiration of heroic qualities and manly virtues: courage for instance. But there are still nobler ways of exercising courage than even in the field of battle. There are more exalted means of showing spirit than by sending or accepting a challenge. To sustain a fit of sickness may exhibit as true heroism as to lead an army. To bear a deep affliction well calls for as high exertion of soul as to storm a town; and to meet death with Christian resolution is an act of courage in which many a woman has triumphed, and many a philosopher, and even some generals, have failed."

I thought I saw in Miss Sparkes's countenance a kind of civil contempt, as if she would be glad to exchange the patient sickness and heroic death-bed for the renown of victory and the glory of a battle; and I suspected that she envied the fame of the challenge, and the spirit of the duel, more than those meek and passive virtues which we all agreed were peculiarly Christian, and peculiarly feminine.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

In the afternoon, when the company were assembled in the drawing-room, the conversation turned on various subjects. Mr. Flam, feeling as if he had not sufficiently produced himself at dinner now took the lead. He was never solicitous to show what he called his learning, but when Miss Sparkes was present, whom it was