," said he, kindly. "But I consider even nineteen as a very early age; too early, indeed, were not my mind so completely at rest about you on the grand points of religion, morals, and temper, that no delay could, I trust, afford me additional security. You will, however, my dear Charles, find so much occupation in preparing your affairs and your mind for so important a change, that you will not find the time of absence so irksome as you fancy."

"Absence, sir?" replied I. "What then, do you intend to banish me?"

"No," replied he, smiling again. "But I intend to send you home. A sentence, indeed, which in this dissipated age is thought the worst sort of exile. You have now been absent six or seven months. This absence has been hitherto justifiable. It is time to return to your affairs, to your duties. Both the one and the other always slide into some disorder by a too long separation from the place of their legitimate exercise. Your steward will want inspection, your tenants may want redress, your poor always want assistance."

Seeing me look irresolute, "I must I find," added he, with the kindest look and voice, "be compelled to the inhospitable necessity of turning you out of doors."

"Live without Lucilla three months!" said I. "Allow me, sir, at least to remain a few weeks longer at the Grove?"

"Love is a bad calculator," replied Mr. Stanley, "I believe he never learned arithmetic. Don't you know that as you are enjoined a three month's banishment, that the sooner you go, the sooner you will return? And that however long your stay now is, your three months' absence will still remain to be accomplished. To speak seriously, Lucilla's sense of propriety, as well as that of Mrs. Stanley, will not allow you to remain much longer under the same roof, now that the motive will become so notorious. Besides that, an act of self-denial is a good principle to set out upon, business and duties will fill up your active hours, and an intercourse of letters with her you so reluctantly quit, will not only give an interest to your leisure, but put you both still more completely in possession of each other's character!"

"I will set out to-morrow, sir," said I, earnestly, "in order to