nified; if tolerable, a Grecian Venus. Her favourites are Angels. Her enemies Da mons. "She would be thought very religious, and I hope that she will one day become so; yet she sometimes treats serious things with no small levity, and though she would not originally say a very hard word, yet she makes no scruple of repeating with great glee, profane stories told by others. Besides she possesses the dangerous art of exciting an improper idea, without using an improper word. Gross indecency would shock her, but she often verges so far towards indelicacy as to make Mrs. Stanley uneasy. Then she is too much of a genius to be tied down by any consideration of prudence. If a good thing occurs out it comes, without regard to time or circumstance. She would tell the same story to a Bishop, as to her chambermaid. If she says a right thing, which she often does, it is seldom in the right place. She makes her way in society without attaching many friends. Her bons mots are admired and repeated; yet I never met met with a man of sense, who, though he may join in flattering her, did not declare, as soon as she was out of the room, that he would not for the world, that she should be his wife or daughter. It is irksome for her to converse with her own sex, while she little suspects that ours is not properly grateful for the preference with which she honours us." "She is," continued Mr. Stanley, "charitable with her purse, but not with her tongue; she relieves her poor neighbours, and indemnifies herself by slandering her rich ones. She has however, many good qualities, is generous and compassionate, and I would on no account speak so freely of a lady whom I receive at my house, were it not that, if I were quite silent, after Phoebe's expressed admiration, she might conclude that I saw nothing to condemn in Miss Sparkes, and might be copying her faults, under the notion, that being entertaining made amends for every thing." CHAP. XXXIII. ONE morning, Sir John coming in from his ride gaily called out to me, as I was reading. "Oh Charles, such a piece of news! The Miss Flams are converted, They have put on tuckers-They were at church twice on Sunday-Blair's Sermons are sent for, and you are the reformer." This ludicrous address reminded Mr. Stanley, that Mr. Flam had told him we were all in disgrace, for not having called on the ladies, and it was proposed to repair this neglect. "Now take notice," said Sir John, "if you do not see a new character assumed. Thinking Charles to be a fine man of the town, the modish racket, which indeed is their natural state, was played off, but it did not answer. As they probably, by this time suspect your character to be somewhat be tween tween the Strephon and the Hermit, we shall now, in return, see something between the wood nymph and the nun, I shall not wonder if the extravagantly modish Miss Bell, Is now Pastora by a fountain's side. Though I would not attribute the change to the cause assigned by Sir John, yet I confess we found, when we made our visit, no small revolution in Miss Bell Flam. The part of the Arcadian Nymph, the reading lady, the lover of retirement, the sentimental admirer of domestic life, the censurer of thoughtless dissipation, was each acted in succession, but so skilfully touched, that the shades of each melted in the other, with-out any of those violent transitions which a less experienced actress would have exhibited. Sir John slily, yet with affected gravity, assisting her to sustain this newly adopted character, which, however, he was sure would last no longer than the visit. When we returned home, we met the Miss Stanleys in the garden, and joined them F 3 them. "Don't you admire," said Sir John, "the versatility of Miss Bell's genius? You, Charles, are not the first man on whom an assumed fondness for rural delights has been practised. A friend of mine was drawn in to marry, rather suddenly, a thorough-paced town-bred lady, by her repeated declarations of her passionate fondness for the country, and the rapture she expressed when rural scenery was the subject. All she knew of the country was, that she had now and then been on a party of pleasure at Richmond, in the fine summer months; a great dinner at the Star and Garter, gay company, a bright day, lovely scenery, a dance on the green, a partner to her taste, French horns on the water, altogether constituted a feeling of pleasure, from which she had really persuaded herself that she was fond of the country. But when all these concomitants were withdrawn, when she had lost the gay partner, the dance, the horns, the flattery, and the frolic, and nothing was left, but her books, her own dull |