it from the very first,—which leads you to treat this excellent man as you do. Do you forget that he is the relation as well as the friend of our minister? Fie upon it, Helen! you must bring down this haughty spirit to something more approaching meek Christian humility, or you and I shall never be able to live together."

It seems almost like a paradox, and yet it is perfectly true, that had not Mrs. Mowbray from the very first, as she said, perceived the utter vulgarity, in person, language, and demeanour, of the vicar's cousin, she would have been greatly less observant and punctilious in her civilities towards him; nor would she have been so fatally ready to quarrel with her daughter for testifying her dislike of a man who, her own taste told her, would be detestable, were not the holiness of his principles such as to redeem every defect with which nature, education, and habit had afflicted him.

The more Mrs. Mowbray felt disposed to shrink from an intimate association with the serious attorney, the more strenuously did she force her nature to endure him; and feeling, almost unconsciously perhaps, that it was impossible Helen should not detest him, she put all her power and authority in action, not only to prevent her showing it, but to prevent also so very sinful and worldly-minded a sentiment from taking hold upon her young mind.

Helen, however, was too much irritated at this moment to submit, as she had been ever used to do, to the commands of her mother; and still feeling the pressure of the serious attorney's person against her own, she let down the front glass, and very resolutely called to the postillions to stop.

The boy who rode the wheeler immediately heard and obeyed her.

"Tell the servant to open the door," said she with a firmness and decision which she afterwards recalled to herself with astonishment.

Thomas, who, the moment the carriage stopped, had got down, obeyed the call she now addressed to him,—opened the door, gave her his arm; and before either Mrs. Mowbray, or the serious attorney either, had fully recovered from their astonishment, Helen was comfortably seated on the dickey, enjoying the cool breeze of a delicious afternoon upon her flushed cheek.

The turn which was given to this transaction by Mr. Stephen Corbold during the tête-à-tête conversation he enjoyed for the rest of the journey with the young lady's mother was such as to do credit to his acuteness; and that good lady