the dinner and a crowded table? and is it not better that they should spoil the pleasure of the company, though the mischief they do is bought by the sacrifice of their own liberty?" "I make my amende," said she. "I never will be so forward again to suspect piety of ill nature." "So far from it, Caroline," said Sir John, "that we will adopt the practice we were so forward to blame; and I shall not do it," said he, "more from regard to the company, than to the children, who I am sure will be gainers in point of enjoyment; liberty, I perceive, is to them positive pleasure, and paramount to any which our false epicurism can contrive for them."

"Well, Charles," said Sir John, as soon as he saw me alone, "now tell us about this Lucilla, this paragon, this nonpareil of Dr. Barlow's. Tell me what is she? or rather what is she not?"

"First," replied I, "I will as you desire, define her by negatives—she is not a professed beauty, she is not a professed genius, she is not a professed philosopher, she is not a professed wit, she is not a professed any thing; and, I thank my stars, she is not an artist!" "Bravo, Charles, now as to what she is." "She is," replied I, "from nature—a woman, gentle, feeling, animated, modest. She is by education, elegant, informed, enlightened. She is, from religion, pious, humble, candid, charitable."

"What a refreshment will it be," said Sir John, "to see a girl of fine sense, more cultivated than accomplished—the creature, not of fiddlers and dancing-masters, but of nature, of books, and of good company! If there is the same mixture of spirit and delicacy in her character, that there is of softness and animation in her countenance, she is a dangerous girl, Charles."

"She certainly does," said I, "possess the essential charm of beauty where it exists; and the most effectual substitute for it, where it does not; the power of prepossessing the beholder by her look and manner, in favor of her understanding and temper."

This prepossession I afterward found confirmed, not only by her own share in the conversation, but by its effect on myself; I always feel that our intercourse unfolds, not