bella, why should you think that either is the case? Indeed, I am no slug-a-bed. Mamma always made us rise early. In fact, we had so much to do, that the day was scarcely long enough; and we always took a walk in the Park before breakfast; the morning air mamma thought so good for the complexion. So you see that it is no extraordinary effort in me to avail myself of your happy custom of early hours."

"Umph!" said Lady Rachel, "and do I owe the honour of this visit to your having had lessons to learn, or to the care of your complexion ?"

"To neither, indeed, my dear Lady Rachel," returned Isabella," although there are some lessons I would willingly learn, lessons that would, perhaps, make the care of my complexion useless."

Very moral, and

very sententious!

but not very explicit," returned Lady Rachel; "however, I think I can understand you. What has put you, child, so much out of humour with the world of a sudden ?"

"Not of a sudden," replied Isabella. "I think I have liked it worse and worse every week since I began to know it."

"Where is your husband, child?" said Lady Rachel.

My dear Madam, what has that to do with my liking the world? I am sure there is nothing that it contains, that Mr. Willoughby would not give me if I wished for it."

"Except his company," said Lady Rachel drily.

"Oh Lady Rachel!" said Isabella, "who would have thought that you would have made such an observation?”

"And why not?" said Lady Rachel;

you come to me to talk of

your quarTM rels with the world, and are surprised that I should point out the cause of them."

"Mr. Willoughby is not the cause of them," said Isabella earnestly, "and to a wife"

"Away with all common place maxims," said Lady Rachel; "away with all equivocation. What but dissatisfaction at home could put you out of humour with a world which smiles but too much upon you? and if a wife complain to a friend, that friend ought to tell her the truth."

"But did I complain of Mr. Willoughby?" asked Isabella.

"Yes," returned Lady Rachel, "when you told me that there were lessons that you would willingly learn, and lessons that might make the care of your complexion useless, what was it but to tell me that your husband had no relish for

your present acquirements, or no taste for your beauty?

"Alas!" said Isabella, "nothing can be more true, and yet I am sure I did not mean to say it; and mamma always tells me that I am so happy, and that I ought to be so happy, that I really think I must be quite criminal to feel so sad and cast down as I do, almost perpetually."

"Are you sad and cast down, my child?" said Lady Rachel; "how is that? when I hear of you as giving the tone to every society, when your name is in the mouth of every coxcomb, and when neither cost nor solicitude are spared to make you the most gilded of the butterflies that glitter through this gay town?"

"And after what you have discovered, my dear madam," said Isabella, timidly and blushing, "cannot you see the reason of all this ?"

"No, upon my word," replied Lady Rachel, "except that you are dissipated and vain, and love dress."

"How widely do you mistake my motives!" said Isabella. "I had flattered myself, that you at least would have done me more justice! How little do you know the poor Isabella, if you think that for her own pleasure she either leads the life she does, or bestows so much either time or money in adorning her person."

"Does your husband then enjoin you to be at half a dozen places every evening? does he compel you to listen to the flattery of every fool who approaches you? does he condemn you to a continual renewal of the most expensive silks and the finest laces ?"

"Yes, he does," said Isabella warmly; "for he admires the same in others, and it is my duty not to be excelled in any thing that he likes."