"Lady Rachel does not feel as I do, thought she; it is easy to trace out the rugged path of narrow rectitude,

And

it is difficult to walk in it! how am I assured that this is the only path that is honest and safe?— how many, both of the good and the wise, think otherwise than Lady Rachel, and act as they think? Was it discreet of Lady Rachel, thus at once to set before me all the difficulties that I should have to encounter in the course which she proposes? difficulties from within and from without? Had she known the weakness of which I was guilty last night, she would have been more scrupulous of frightening me from her by her rigidity. I can be lieve that her moral is more safe, but the compassion of Sir Charles would have been more soothing."

These and many other such questions and reasonings engaged the mind

of Isabella; but neither her heart nor her understanding returned her any satisfactory solution to her doubtsaccustomed to move in the darkness of error, she could scarcely bear the light of truth; and it was perhaps in the hope of being confirmed in the wisdom of the maxims in which she had been trained, that on her return home from Lady Rachel's, she called at her mother's.

If such were her hope, she was disappointed. Lady Jane was absent, and she found her eldest sister with swelled eyes and a clouded counte

nance.

"What is the matter?" cried Isabella, in a pitying accent.

"Oh Isabella," returned Harriet, "how happy are you to be married? with you, this eternal cry of be first,' in all we do, is over; you have gained

the prize, and may rest on your arms, and be at peace."

"What has happened?" said Isabella.

"Nothing much out of the common way," replied Harriet; "but it has vexed me more than usual because mamma was so cross; perhaps I was saucy, for one cannot always be a child you know; and so, to punish me, she has taken Elizabeth to the Park, and has left me at home; and she says, that except I humble myself, I shall not go to Mrs. Frampton's to-night — but I am resolved not to humble myself—I see no reason why I should humble myself to mamma, when she is always telling me to remember my own dignity; however, it is all mamma's fault, not mine."

"What is all this about ?" said Isabella. "Oh it all happened about the music last night; mamma wished par

ticularly that I should excel Miss Thompson, because you know Mrs. Thompson thinks nobody understands education as well as she does, and because you know a certain person was to be present. I am sure I wished it too, but I really had a cold, and so mamma is sure that I did not take pains; and the truth is, that she was applauded and listened to a great deal more than I was, and especially by him, and how could I help this?—but mamma has done nothing but scold, and quarrel with me about it ever since. She says it signifies nothing what pains she takes when she is so ill seconded, and that she cannot expect that good luck will always stand her friend; for she will have it that it was luck only that married for she says you, that you were often abominably careless, and that she had hoped better things from me, but that now she despairs; with

a great deal more of the same, that you have heard a thousand times repeated. I do wish I was married, and then nobody would care whether I sang in or out of tune. "

"Very true!" said Isabella, with a deep-drawn sigh, and giving her sister all the comfort of which the case would admit, and which had often been administered to her upon similar occasions, she proceeded home to meditate on the comfort in the progress, and the happiness in the result, of living to the opinions of others rather than She made something like a resolution to escape from such slavery, did more justice to the wisdom as well the purity of Lady Rachel's moral, and felt more at peace with herself for doing so.

our own.

On entering her house Isabella encountered her husband, who was just