"Poor Duty!" said Lady Rachel, shrugging up her shoulders, "how hard is thy burthen!"

Is it not my duty," cried Isabella eagerly, "to do every thing that Mr. Willoughby likes?"

"No!" replied Lady Rachel.

"But I have solemnly engaged to obey him," urged Isabella.

"You had previously solemnly engaged to renounce the pomps and vanities of the world," replied Lady Rachel.

"But, dear madam, is there not something due to the station we hold in life; to the expectations of the society in which we move?"

"Yes," replied Lady Rachel; "provide things honest in the sight of all men. But you are too rapid in your transitions for the slowness of my intellect: I thought we were speaking of the duty of pleasing a husband;

and now it seems as if to please the world was the matter in question. Pray, child, which do you mean to make your paramount duty?'

"To please my husband, surely," said Isabella.

"And to mortify and outshine Lady Charlotte Dunstan," said Lady Rachel. Isabella blushed.

"I am sure, my dear Lady Rachel," said she, "you would not have that woman triumph over me: you would not have me forget what I owe to myself."

"There is another creditor that you are bound to satisfy first," said Lady Rachel.

Isabella felt awed: yet she thought to herself that Lady Rachel had a very extraordinary way of making the most solemn subjects bear upon the commonest incidents of life, wholly unlike Mrs. Nesbitt's quotations and allu

sions; and she intimated her thought, by gently remarking, that, "just then, she was not thinking of such things."

Truly I believe you," said Lady Rachel: "you were thinking of laying aside the modest adornments of a virtuous wife, and of assuming the meretricious ornaments of a coquette. And you would call this duty!"

"What would you have me do?" said Isabella, with the tears starting in to her eyes.

"Your duty," replied Lady Rachel. "Oh! that I knew it!" cried Isabella.

"It is written, where those that run may read,” returned Lady Rachel.

"I have always been told," said Isabella, "that to please my husband, and to enjoy the innocent pleasures that are offered to me, and to secure the world's good opinion, was my duty. I have tried to do all this, and

yet you seem to think I have not fulfilled my obligation."

"Is this all your duty?" said Lady Rachel.

"Oh! not all, to be sure," said Isabella, "but—”

"Finish your sentence, child," said Lady Rachel.

"I do not know how," said Isabella. "Something, I confess, seems want ing: but I hope I have too much prudence, too much proper pride, to do anything that is wrong; and while I take care not to do so, surely I may be allowed to try every means in my power to prevent the machinations of a bad woman from estranging my husband's heart."

"If we do not differ," replied Lady Rachel, " upon the meaning of the words, anything wrong,' our dispute will be ended; but I apprehend that

neither prudence nor pride will be the best expositors of what is so."

"Can you tell me what would be so?" said Isabella, with an accent of the most earnest supplication; "for never poor mariner, that went to sea without his compass, was ever more at a loss which way to steer, than I am to know how to conduct myself in this world of shining surface and sunken rocks."

"Very metaphorical!" said Lady Rachel," and what if I tell you that you have been accustomed to talk in metaphors till plain speech is either unintelligible or shocking to your ears ?"

"It may be so," said Isabella, "for assuredly I find nothing in the maxims on which I have been instructed to rely, that brings me either direction in my doubts, or comfort in my sorrows." "And how should they ?" replied Lady Rachel, "when they all tend to