The girls looked at one another: but Mrs Shirley speaking, they were all silent.

The happiness of human life, my dears, replied your grandmamma, is at best but comparative. The utmost we should hope for here, is such a situation, as, with a self-approving mind, will carry us best through this present scene of trial such a situation, as, all circumstances considered, is, upon the whole, most eligible for us, though some of its circumstances may be disagreeable.

Young people set out with false notions of happiness; gay, fairy-land imaginations; and when these schemes prove unattainable, sit down in disappointment and dejection. Tell me now, Kitty Holles, and speak freely, my love, [She would not address herself to some of us for a reason I, your Lucy, for one, need not give, we are all friends; the gravest of us have been young; tell us, Kitty, your ideas of happiness for a young woman just setting out in life.

Poor Emily answered only with a sudden blush, and a half-stifled sigh; but all the rest, as with one voice, cried out, Harriet, our Harriet, is the happy woman!-To be married to the man of her choice; the man chosen by her friends, and applauded by all the world.

And so, said Mrs Selby, as there is but one Sir Charles Grandison in the world, were his scheme of Protestant nunneries put into execution, all the rest of womankind, who had seen him with distinction, might retire into cloisters.

Were men to form themselves by his example, said Emily-No unfavourable hint for Sir Edward-There she stopt.

Besides, said I, (my own case in view,) when our eye has led our choice, imagination can easily add all good qualities to the plausible appearance. But to give our hand where we cannot give a preference, is, surely, madam, acting against conscience in the most important article of life.

A preference we ought to give, my Lucy; but need this be the preference of giddy inclination? No aversion presupposed, will not reason and duty give this preference in a securer and nobler way to the man who, upon the whole, is most suitable to us? It is well known, that I was always for discouraging our Harriet's declarations, that she never would be the wife of any other man than him she is now so happy as to call hers. If (as we all at one time apprehended) our hopes had been absolutely impracticable, the noble Countess of D, who gave such convincing reasons on her side of the question,* would have had my good wishes for the Earl of D. So, before him, had not ill health been an objection, would Mr Orme. You all know, that I wished but to live to see my Harriet the wife of some

worthy man. A single woman is too generally an undefended, unsupported creature. Her early connections, year by year, drop off; no new ones arise; and she remains solitary and unheeded, in a busy bustling world; perhaps soured to it by her unconnected state. Is not some gratitude due to a worthy man, who early offers himself for her guide and protector through life? Gratitude was the motive even of Harriet's inclination at first.

Nancy smiled. Why smiles my Nancy? asked your smiling grandmamma. I am sure you think, child, there is weight in what I said.

Indeed, madam, there is-Great weight-But just as you gave us an idea of the dreary unconnected life of a single woman in years, I thought of poor Mrs Penelope Arby. You all know her. I saw her in imagination, surrounded with parrots and lap-dogs!-So spring-like at past fifty, with her pale pink lustring, and back-headYet so peevish at girls!

And she, resumed Mrs Shirley, refused some good offers in her youth, out of dread of the tyranny of a husband, and the troublesomeness of a parcel of brats!-Yet now she is absolutely governed by a favourite maid, and as full of the bon-mots of her parrots, as I used to be of yours, my loves, when you were prattlers.

Yet let us not, said Mrs Selby, with the insolence of matrons, or brides-expectant, be too severe upon old maids. Lady G surely is faulty in this particular. Many worthy and many happy persons in that class have I known: many amiable and useful in society, even to their latest age-You, madam, to Mrs Shirley, had a friend-Mrs Eggleton.

I had, my dear Mrs Selby-Never has any length of time, any variety of scene, at all effaced the dear idea, though she died many years ago. She never married; but that was not her own fault. She was addressed, when near twenty, by a young gentleman of unexceptionable character. She received his addresses, on condition that both their friends approved of them. She was a visitor in town. The relations of both lived in the country. The young couple loved each other; but neither of their family, when consulted, approving the match, to the great regret of both, it was broken off. The gentleman married, and was not unhappy. In three or four years another worthy man made his addresses to Mrs Eggleton. All her friends approved. She found him deserving of her affection, and agreed to reward his merit. He was to make one voyage to the Indies, on prospects too great to be neglected; and on his return they were to be married. His voyage was prosperous to the extent of all his wishes. He landed in his native country; flew to his beloved mistress. She received

his visit with grateful joy. It was his last visit. He was taken ill of a violent fever; died in a few days, delirious, but blessing her.

She and I have talked over the subject we are upon a hundred times. In those days I was young, and had my romantic notions.

Indeed, madam! said Patty Holles. Indeed, madam! said Emily-Dear, dear madam, said Kitty Holles, if it be not too bold a request, let us hear what they were.

The reading in fashion, when I was young, was romances. You, my children, have, in that respect, fallen into happier days. The present age is greatly obliged to the authors of the Spectators. But, till I became acquainted with my dear Mrs Eggleton, which was about my sixteenth year, I was overrun with the absurdities of that unnatural kind of writing.

And how long, madam, did they hold? Not till I was quite twenty. That good lady, cured me of so false a taste: but, till she did, I had very high ideas of first impressions; of eternal constancy; of love raised to a pitch of idolatry. In these dispositions, not more than nineteen, was my dear Mr Shirley proposed to me, as a person whose character was faultless; his offers advantageous. I had seen him in company two or three times, and looked upon him merely as a good sort of a man; a sensible man-But what was a good sort of a man to an Oroondates? He had paid no addresses to me; he applied to my friends on a foot of propriety and prudence. They laid no constraint upon me. I consulted my own heart-But, my dear girls, what a temptation have you thrown in the way of narrative old age!

All of us most eagerly besought her to go on. The excellent Mrs Eggleton knew my heart better than I did myself. Even now, said she, you dislike not this worthy man. You can make no reasonable objection to his offer. You are one of many sisters. We were then a numerous family-Alas! how many dear friends have I outlived!-A'match so advantageous for you, will be of real benefit to your whole family. Esteem, heightened by gratitude, and enforced by duty, continued she, will soon ripen into love: the only sort of love that suits this imperfect state; a tender, a faithful affection. There is a superior ardour due only to supreme perfection, and only to be exercised by us mortal creatures in humble devotion. My dear Henrietta, concluded she, condescend to be happy in such a way as suits this mortal state.

I replied to her, with a distress of mind, proceeded Mrs Shirley, that I could not depend on my own sentiments. I had seen little of the world. Suppose, after I had vowed love to a man quite indifferent to me, I should meet with the very one, the kindred soul, who must irresistibly claim my whole heart? I will not suspect myself of any possibility of misconduct, where the duty

and the crime would be so glaring; but must I not, in such a case, be for ever miserable?

The mild Mrs Eggleton did not chide; she only argued with me. Often afterwards did I, with delight, repeat this conversation to the best of men, my dear Mr Shirley, when a length of happy years had verified all she said.

Dear madam, cried Kitty, tell us how she argued, or we shall all remain on your side of the question.

O my children! said the venerable parent, in what talkativeness do you engage me!

I fear, Henrietta, said Mrs Eggleton, that though you are a good Christian, your opinions in this point are a little heathenish. You look upon love as a blind irresistible deity, whose darts fly at random, and admit neither defence nor cure. Consider the matter, my dear, in a more reasonable light. The passions are intended for our servants, not our masters; and we have, within us, a power of controlling them, which it is the duty and the business of our lives to exert. You will allow this readily in the case of any passion that poets and romance writers have not set off with their false colourings. To instance in anger; Will my Henrietta own, that she thinks it probable, anger should ever transport her beyond the bounds of duty?

I pleaded, that I was not naturally of an angry temper; and was asked with a smile, whether I meant, by that distinction, to own myself of a loving one.

I could not be angry with my good Mrs Eggleton; yet I remember I was vexed to the heart.

But why then, rejoined she, should you think yourself more likely to fall in love after you are married, than before?

At least, said I, a little peevishly, let me stay till I am in love, as you are pleased to call it, before I marry.

I would not by any means, replied she, have you marry a man for whom you have not a preferable inclination; but why may you not find, on admitting Mr Shirley's addresses, young, agreeable, worthy, and every way suitable to you, as he is, that he is that man whom your inclination can approve?

I never saw him yet, said I, with the least emotion. I have no aversion to him: I might esteem him; but what is that to the love one is so solemnly to vow a husband? And should I, after that vow, behold an object whom I could indeed have loved

A Duke de Nemours! said she, taking up the Princess of Cleves, that unluckily lay on my table-Ah, my Henrietta! have I found you out?-That princess, my dear, was a silly woman. Her story is written with dangerous elegance; but the whole foundation of her distresses was an idle one. To fancy herself in love with a mere stranger, because he appeared agreeable at a ball, when she lived happily with a

worthy husband, was mistaking mere liking for love, and combating all her life after with a chimera of her own creating. I do not tell you it is impossible for you to meet hereafter with persons in some external accomplishments superior to the deserving man whose wish is to make you happy but will you suffer your eye to lead you into misery then, when an additional tie of duty forbids its wandering? If so, I must suppose, it would equally mislead you now. Tell me, Henrietta, what think you of those girls, who blast all the hopes of their fond parents, by eloping with a well-dressed captain, a spruce dancing master, or a handsome player?

She struck me dumb with shame. You see then, my dear, the filial duty, the duty of a reasonable and modest woman, were she even without parents or friends, forbids fancy to be her guide, as much as the sacred engagement of marriage forbids it to be her tormentor. But have there not been instances? said I; do not you and I know one [We did] in this neighbourhood, where a truly good woman was made miserable for years, by having her heart and hand differently engaged?

Mrs Eggleton reminded me, that there were, in that case, such extremely particular circumstances, as made it absurd to form from thence a general judgment. In almost everything, said she, we act but upon probabilities; and one exception out of a thousand ought never to determine us. Even this exception, in the case you hint at, is owing, in some measure, to a pitiably misguided imagination. Let us take our rules, my dear, from plain common sense, and not from poetical refinements.

Say, my children, said the condescending parent, did my friend argue well?

I think, madam, answered Kitty, she argued poor Love out of doors. She did not seem to allow the possibility of any persons being in love at all.

I told her so, replied my grandmamma.

So far from it, said she, with a sigh, and a look expressive of the softest tenderness, that my own affections, as you know, were deeply engaged. The amiable youth, to whom I was to be united by marriage, died. His memory will ever be dear to my heart. Love, authorized by reasonable prospects; love, guided and heightened by duty, is everything excellent that poets have said of it: Yet even this love must submit to the awful dispensations of Providence, whether of death or other disappointment; and such trials ought to be met with cheerful resignation, and not to be the means of embittering our lives, or of rendering them useless: And everything we ought to do, be assured, my dear, we shall be enabled to do, if we set about it rightly, and with equal humility and trust. As for that kind of love, which in its very beginning is contrary to duty, to suppose that unconquerable, is making our selves wretched indeed: And for first-sight im

pressions, and beginning inclinations, though always dangerous, and often guilty to indulge, they are absolutely trifles to overcome and suppress, to a person of prudence and virtue.

How we dwelt upon every sweet document that fell from the lips of the dear Mrs Shirley! But now, Harriet, for the appeals. After all, were you, or were you not, a romantic girl, when you declared, that you never would be the wife of any man living, if you were not Sir Charles Grandison's; even at the time when neither you nor we thought there could be any hopes of such a happy event?

But had we not, however, better appeal to Lady G than to you? You were always so wise!-Yet you could not be contented with the worthy Orme. You knew instinctively, as I may say, that your kindred mind dwelt in St James's Square. And Lady G, forty years hence, will be looking back, I suppose, with wonder, on the time when she gave her then fair hand of swan-skin, changed to buff [Her own flighty idea! with reluctance to her deserving lord. So, perhaps, we had best make no appeals at all. If we did, neither you nor she are at leisure now to answer them. Yet we have one appeal more to make; but it must be to our Harriet; not to Lady G. Was not even our venerable parent a little too severe upon old maids? That wicked Nancy fell a laughing-Does she know what may be her own case? Here is a great parcel of girls of us-Have not I, her elder, been crossed in love already? But if no proper match ever offers, must we take an improper one, to avoid the ridicule of a mere name? An unsupported state is better than an oppressed and miserable one, however: And how many rashly-chosen husbands, and repentant wives, could I set against Nancy's Mrs Arby?-But the post is just going out; so that, far from entering on so copious a subject, I have barely time to add, that I am, with the truest affection, my dearest creature, Your faithful

LETTER CCC.

LUCY.

LADY G TO LADY GRANDISON.

Thursday, April 12. I AM very well-What's the matter with the women!-I will write!-Fifteen days' control and caudle-Why, surely !—

They are impertinent, my dear, and would take my pen and ink from me!

You do well, Harriet, to throw upon me your self-condemning task.

How conscious you are, when you tell me, before you know my opinion of the contents of Lucy's letter, that you will not subscribe implicitly to my determination!--But I will not spare

you. In my condemnation of them, read your own. I have written my answer, and shall enclose it; and no more at present trouble myself about them.

But here, I, Charlotte G- who married with indifference the poor Lord G; who made the honest man, whenever I pleased, foam, fume, fret, and execrate the hour that he first beheld my face, now stand forth, an example of true conjugal felicity, and an encouragement for girls who venture into the marriage state, with out that prodigious quantity of violent passion, which some hair-brained creatures think an essential of love.

You, my dear, left us tolerably happy. But now we are almost in-tolerably so I had begun to recover my spirits, depressed as they had been, for near a month before, on finding myself, like any common woman, confined to my chamber, while every other mouth sang, O be joyful! and one was preparing, another had set out, and half a score more were actually got to dear Grandison-Hall. I bit my lip, and raved at the wretch to whom I attributed my durance: When, yesterday, (after a series, indeed, of the most obliging and most grateful behaviour, that a man ever expressed for a present made him, which he holds invaluable,) he entered my chamber; and surprised me, as I did him; (for I intended that he should know nothing of the matter, nor that I would ever be so condescending;) surprised me, as how? Ah, Harriet! In an act that confessed the mother, the whole mother!-Little Harriet at my breast; or, at my neck, I believe I should say should I not?

The nurse, the nursery-maids, knowing that I would not for the world have been so caught by my nimble lord, (for he is in twenty places in a minute,) were more frightened than Diana's nymphs, when the goddess was surprised by Acteon; and each, instead of surrounding me, in order to hide my blushes, was for running a different way; not so much as attempting to relieve me from the brat.

I was ready to let the little leech drop from my arms-0 wretch! screamed I-Begone begone! Whence the boldness of this intrusion? Never was man in greater rapture: for Lady Gertrude had taught him to wish that a mother would be a mother. He threw himself at my feet, clasping me and the little varlet together in his arms. Brute! said I, will you smother my Harriet?—I was half-ashamed of my tenderness-Dear-est, dear-est, dear-est Lady G——— ! Shaking his head between every dear and est, every muscle of his face working; how you transport me! Never, never, never, saw I so delightful a sight! Let me, let me, let me (every emphatic word repeated three times at least) behold again the dear sight! Let me see you clasp the precious gift, our Harriet's Harriet too, to that lovely bosom!-The wretch (trembling, however,) pulled aside my handkerchief. I tried to sold; but was forced to press the little thing to

Take away the pug, said I to the attendantsTake it away, while any of it is left-They rescued the still smiling babe, and ran away with it.

My lord then again threw himself at my feet -Pardon, pardon me, dearest creature, said he, that I took amiss anything you ever said or did! -You that could make me such rich amends!O, let not those charming, charming spirits ever subside, which for a fortnight together, till yesterday I missed! I loved you too well, proceeded he, to take any usage that was not quite what I wished it, lightly. But for some time past I have seen that it was all owing to a vivacity, that now, in every instance of it, delights my soul. You never, never, had malice or ill-nature in what I called your petulance. You bore with mine. You smiled at me: Henceforth, everything you say, everything you do, I will take for a favour. O my Charlotte! Never, never, more shall it be in your power to make me so far forget myself, as to be angry.

My dear Lord G! I had like to have said I believe I did say-Then will you ruin, absolutely ruin, me ?-What shall I do—for my roguery ?

Never, never, part with what you call so!

Impossible, my lord, to retain it, if it lose its wonted power over you. I shall have a new lesson to learn. O my lord! why began you not this course before Harriet and Caroline set out for Grandison-Hall? I might, by a closer observation of their behaviour, have made myself mistress of lessons that would have far more delightfully supplied the old ones, than can be done without their examples. But, my lord, the time will soon come, when we shall be allowed to fly to that benefit at Grandison-Hall. Our little Harriet shall go with us: The infant is the cement between us; and we will for the future be every day more worthy of that, and of each other.

My lord hurried from me in speechless rapture; his handkerchief at his eyes-Nurse, said I, bring me again our precious charge. I will be all the mother. I clasped it in my bosom. What shall I do, my little Harriet! Thy father, sweet one! has run away with my roguery

What a scene is here!-I will not read it over. If it requires a blush, do you, my dear, blush for me: I am hardened-And shall not,

perhaps, were I to reperuse it, my maternity so kindly acknowledged, so generously accepted, by my Lord G―, be able to blush for myself.

But, that I may seem only to have changed the object, not wholly to have parted with my levity, read the enclosed here, in answer to the appeal of the young people; directed thus:

LADY GTO MISS LUCY SELBY,

And the rest of the Girls at Selby-House,

GREETING.

You appeal to Harriet, and revoke your appeal: You appeal to me, and withdraw it in the same letter-A parcel of chits! You know not what you would have; what you would be; and hardly what you are: You can have the sauciness, in more places than one, to reflect upon me your judge. But are you not convinced by the solid arguments of Mrs Shirley, and her Mrs Eggleton? If you are not, what strange creatures are girls from sixteen to twenty-two! Don't boys read romances as well as girls? Yet, in these latter days, do the glaring absurdities influence them so much in love-matters, or last so long? Foolish things! would you give a preference against yourselves to the other sex?

Harriet, I think, was a romantic girl, when she made her declarations of one man only, or no one, for a husband. I did let her know my mind at the time by hints: But had my brother actually married Clementina, not only I, but her grandmother Shirley, and aunt Selby, and uncle too, (odd soul as he is in some things,) would have spoken out in favour of the young Earl of D. And had it not been with success, after a proper time had passed, I, for my part, would have set her down as a very silly girl; inferior, in this respect, to you, Lucy, and to twenty more I could name: For how few of us are there, who have their first loves? And, indeed, how few first loves are fit to be encouraged? You know my thoughts, Lucy, of a beginning love in a young bosom*-A very, very silly and childish affair, believe me.

Let me enumerate a few chances that may render a first love impracticable.

A young woman may fix her affections on a man, who may prove perfidious-On a man, who may be engaged to another woman; as had like to have been my brother's case-On a man, who may be superior to her in degree or fortune; or who may be greatly inferior to her in both.-If love be not a voluntary passion, why not upon a hostler, a groom, a coachiman, a footman-A grenadier, a trooper, a foot-soldier?-She may be in Mrs Eggleton's case: her lover may be taken from her by death. In either, or any, of these cases,

what is to be done? Must a woman sit down, cry herself blind, and become useless to the principal end of her being, as to this life, and to all family-connections, when, probably, she has not lived one third of her time ?-Silly creatures!— to maintain these nonsenses at their own expense, in favour of a passion that is generally confined to the days of girlhood; and which they themselves would laugh at in a woman after she was arrived at honest thirty, or at years of discretion-Thus narrowing their own use and consequence-I, for my part, am, and ever will be, a friend of my sex.

But, hark ye, girls-Let me ask you-Do you find many of these constant nymphs, when they have had their foolish way given them, and they have buried the honest man of whom they were once so dotingly fond, refuse to marry again?-Do they wish, like the wives of some pagan wretches, to be thrown into the funeral pile, with the dead bodies of their lords?—No! They have had their whimsey out. Their fit of constancy is over; and quite good souls as they are by that time become, they go on without rantipoling, in the ordinary course of reasonable creatures.

Not but Harriet was in earnest: I am sure she was. She believed, she certainly believed, HERSELF. And were it given to us women always to be in one mind, she would have made all her friends, the good Mrs Shirley at the head of us, despair of succeeding with her in our endeavours to induce her to change it. But Harriet, with all her wisdom, could not know what Time would have done for her. Time is the pacifier of every woe, the qualifier of every disappointmentPity for the man; [the Earl of DHe would have thought it worth his while to feign dying for her; the entreaty of her friends:

suppose

You see what arguments her excellent grandmamma could have produced-Pho, pho, never fear but Harriet would have married before my brother and Clementina had seen the face of their second boy-No girls shall she have, for fear they should be romancers.

And, do you think, that Clementina and the Count of Belvedere, a year or two hence—I have no fear of the matter; if they do not teaze, torment, oppose her. If they do-Why, then, I will not be answerable for their success. For, with excellencies that none but she and Harriet among women ever boasted, there is a glorious perverseness, which they miscall constancy and perseverance, in the mind of that noble lady, (and indeed in the minds of most of us,) that will probably, as it has already done, carry her through all opposition-In short, no more teazing, tormenting from friends, no more heroics from girls-Is not opposition, is not resistance, the very soul and essence of all sorts of heroism ?—My life therefore for Clementina's, admirable creature as she