"Perhaps it would have been better for has always been to you a kind and indulgent her if she had," replied Mary. "So far from forgetting it," continued her friend, "she strove continually to impress upon my mind, the importance of imbibing, ⠀ and retaining, her own notions of that distinction of birth and education which she valued so highly; and, above all things, warned me against forming any low connexion in marriage." "But did she make you understand exactly whereabouts in society to place yourself? for that must clearly be made out, before you can know whether you look above or below you; and in my opinion it is one of the worst evils arising from alliances such as your mother's, and one which those who enter into them must have bitterly to lament, that their offspring occupy a doubtful and father. But I fear my advice is not agreeable to you." "Excuse me," replied Anna, endeavouring to look polite, because she really felt angry; excuse me, Mary, if I say it is not quite agreeable; not because I cannot bear to hear the truth, but because you have not the kind of tact which is requisite to repder advice pleasing. "And excuse me, Anna, if I say that I do not believe any tact can render advice pleasing to those who do not mean to follow it. After this, there was a long pause between the two friends, during which, Anna tried to forget what had passed, while Mary struggled to subdue her personal feelings, so that she might speak calmly and seriously, what she was determined her friend should hear. "Anna," said she, "we have been long friends-friends in infancy-friends at school. Shall we not continue friends, now that we are about to enter upon the cares of women, and may need each others help? But mind me, Anna, friend is a serious word, and ought not to be lightly used. By being friends, I do not mean that we are merely to walk out together, and read together, and hear each other's love stories. No, I mean that we are to stand by each other through life, through evil report, and good report-to watch over each other for good, and to speak boldly and openly, yet kindly and tenderly, all that we think of each other. This is my notion of a friend; and if you think I am so meek and low, that I dare not be all this to you, you are very much mistaken, for I never will be humble friend to any one, no, not to you, Anna, dearly as I love you." Anna, who had advanced nearer to Mary while she was speaking, now, with tears in her eyes, besought her forgiveness; and they parted for that night, with more true love than they had felt for months before. Mary went in with the stockings she had darned, and commenced the operation of washing her little brothers and sisters before they went to bed, while Anna sauntered home by moonlight, musing as she went; then trimmed a new bonnet for exhibition the next day, and tried a new tune on her guitar before she retired to bed, where her dreams were scarcely more visionary than those which usually occupied her waking hours. Neither of these young persons was of the class properly called poor. Their fathers were both small farmers, a description of people once numerous in Great Britain, now very much decreased by the loss of those who have fallen into abject want, and those who are scrambling up the dangerous ladder of luxurious extravagance. The house in which Mary lived ought not, in the present day, to be called a cottage, because it could neither be etched, nor sketched into any thing, that would not be altogether disgraceful to the pages of a lady's album. It was a small, square-looking house, built of red brick, with a green door at the termination of a gravel walk to which you passed through a little gate, green also, and flanked on either side by green paling On entering the door, you saw on the right hand a common sitting room, with a brick floor, and on the other, a neatly garnished parlour, used only on Sundays, with a carpet and a sofa, and a chimney piece ornamented with a pair of beautiful hand-screens, "wrought by no other hand, I ween,” thau that of Anna Clare. If the habitation of the Newtons was incapable of being metamorphosed into a picture, Mary herself was equally incapable of being transformed into a heroine. Neither her size, her figure, nor her face, was calculated to distinguish her from the many. Her dress was neither picturesque nor fashionable, and her hair, neither raven, nor flaxen, golden, nor auburn, but just such as no poet or painter could make any use of, was braided over a forehead, neither high, nor marble pale. In short she was just the sort of person of which we fancy the multitude is composed, when we look out upon a crowd of people. While Anna's was a face, which the eye would discover and single out from amongst a thousand, and set the imagination to work to ponder upon whence it could have come, and whither it might be going. From her mother she had learned to place an undue value upon the symbols of wealth; but it seemed as though she had inherited, by nature, all that could adorn and give outward excellence to the highest station. Slender, delicate, and graceful in her figure, she had exactly the kind of taste, which enabled her to set that figure off to advantage; while her raven hair, because she knew not how to dress it fashionably, was always dressed becomingly. Her complexion was clear and glowing, and her dark eyes had that peculiar light of joy, and innocence, which is seldom seen in those that have looked long upon the world. These simple charms, however trifling in description, may yet be accounted dangerous gifts; and such they have often proved to the poor inhabitant of the cottage. But there is a gift of far more fatal consequence to the peace of woman's mind, when that mind has not been disciplined by a rational education. "A quest for hidden knowledge," with a deep sense of the sublime and beautiful, which those who have never looked on nature's face with the eye of a poet, or a painter, can in no way comprehend. And this was Anna's portion too. How mournfully misplaced! For, beneath her father's humble roof, where she ought to have been, and, no doubt, under other circumstances, would have been, a kind and dutiful daughter, she was now dreaming away her existence in a world of visions, of which the every-day duties of common life formed no part. July, the inhabitants of the little village of L-, were astonished by a blaze of beauty and fashion, at their parish church. Mary had no time to make observations on the new comers, for with her constant and fruitless attempts to restrain the wonder and admiration of her little flock, and her earnest and zealous endeavours to keep her own attention fixed upon the service, she found enough to do; but Anna, not being quite so fully engaged, had leisure to set down in her memory the whole family of the Langleys, just come to spend the summer months at their country seat. First, the old gentleman, Sir Thomas, with his white hair and sleek countenance, and his one idea perpetually recurring to the moor game, about to be shot by his hopeful son.-Lady Langley, with her towering crest of plumes and ribbons; come down into the country to be great.-Miss Langley, looking soft, delicate, and languid, but alas! not very young; come down into the country to brace up a feeble constitution for the ensuing winter, and to lay up a store of good works, to be held in memorial in her favour, by establishing Sunday schools, and soup societies.-Miss Julia Langley, a beauty of campaign; come down into the country to sketch waterfalls, and babble of Corinne.And the heir apparent, young and handsome, for what earthly purpose could he be come? Anna had early imbibed a taste for the accomplishments which adorn the higher stations in society. Music and drawing had been taught her by her mother; and being naturally of an aspiring mind, she had prevailed upon her father to allow her the advantage of instruction in oil painting, in the hope of rendering her genius more profitable. This was an important step in the ladder of distinction, in consequence of which all the well disposed young women in the neigh-five winters, returning from an unsuccessful bourhood agreed to call her a genius, while all the young men toasted her as a beauty; the women wishing internally that she had less of the one quality, the men that she had less of the other. But Anna valued both. Her beauty was delightful to her as a painter, no less than as a woman; and her genius was the magical key, which opened to her mental vision the wide field of taste, and sentiment, and feeling; a field so dangerous to enter upon, that those who have ventured within its charmed precincts, have too often returned to the beaten track of life with weary, and unwilling steps, wishing in vain to call back the happy thoughts of simplicity and youth, which made the paternal home a haven of rest, and life itself an enjoyment. Anna's new bonnet had not been trimmed in vain; for on the following morning, while the sun shone upon a cloudless sabbath in Anna had time for all these reflections and enquiries, and a thousand more, by no means omitting the conclusion that Frederick Langley was the most brilliant and moving spectacle she had ever before witnessed in the form of man. One look, and only one, she had ventured to fix full upon his countenance, when immediately his glass was raised, and Anna felt, that for a long time she was the object of his fixed and steady attention; but for all that, she did not completely turn away, nor take any effectual measures to relieve herself from the embarrassment of her situation, though anger and shame heightened the crimson that spread itself all over her beau- liarity of town-bred insolence, was not the tiful face. Before the service was over, Mary had forgotten that any strangers were at church, and Anna had forgotten every thing beside. Mary returned home with serious thoughts, to perform the duties in her domestic circle; and Anna went that afternoon with less than her wonted alacrity, to take her part as teacher in a Sunday school, some years ago established by the good clergyman of the parish, and so steadily supported, as. to need little patronage from Miss Langley. Miss Langley, however, could not withhold the blessing of her countenance. Miss Julia could find no better amusement for the Sunday afternoon; and Frederick thought there might be a chance of his meeting again with the fair vision of the morning. The door of the school-room opened Anna looked up, and from that moment, she thought as little of the alphabet, the catechism, and even of the bible itself, as any of her little pupils. "Come here to me," said Miss Langley in a tone of authority, to one of the older girls, who was just taxing her attention to answer in her turn, the question of the teacher. "Come here to me, and tell me, if you can, what took place at the building of the Tower of Babel?" "Confusion of tongues," thought the teacher, "and I wish it may not be come to us." "What a charming study!" exclaimed Julia, singling out a little curly-pated urchin, who laughed and blushed, and wondered what she meant. distinction at which she aimed; and rallying her wandering thoughts, she assumed an air of dignity, and endeavoured to resume her task. The young gentleman finding he had mistaken the subject of his attentions, and his sisters being equally disappointed in theirs, the party withdrew, leaving the young people in wonder at their gauze and laces, the old at their folly and assurance. CHAPTER II. "I TOLD You," said Frederick Langley to his sister, the next morning, "I told you we should all be miserably disappointed in coming to this abominable old Hall, for you see we have neither field sports in the day, peasants dancing on the green in the evening, nor ghosts ranging through the corridor at night. How, in the name of ennui, do you mean to exist?" "Heaven only knows how Pa, and Ma, and Susan will exist," replied Julia; "but for my part, I am going out to sketch, when the dew is off the grass; and then you know, Lord B- comes down to shoot in August, and your horses come on Saturday, and I am sure you will let me ride Phillis again.” "Lord B― is a great bore,” replied her brother; and it always rains on the moors, and my horses don't come till Monday, and you shall not ride Phillis, because you always spoil her paces. But come, the dew is off the grass, and I have so much that is amiable in my temper just now, that I can afford to go out with you to sketch, and cut your pencils into the bargain, provided only, you will go my way." "Take that, you little — -" said Fredeick, throwing a sixpence on the floor, "and buy yourself a stick, instead of breaking mine." Then, turning to Anna, "A charming amusement," continued he, seating himself upon the bench beside her, "I wish I might be a pupil." But the method he The fact was, the young gentleman had had chosen for commencing an acquaint- determined, if possible, to see Anna Clare ance was not suited to the taste of his com- again. Had his first advances been received panion. It savoured too much of the Hall with the simper of a rustic coquette, it is and the Cottage. To be singled out as a probable that all interest about her would village beauty, and addressed with the fami- | have ceased then, and there; but the look of |