like the portions of a Chinese puzzle, it is too much trouble to put them together again.

I was

Florence. Only that mamma would say pert, I would say something about "Sir Oracle." But suppose that, when we are all tired looking at the form and fashion of your wisdom, I do slip out one little piece of what you have so mathematically put together, and fitting it on some neglected side, present you with a new and bizarre figure, what then? would not my wise brother condescend to smile at my haphazard combination.

Mrs. Austin. I must be umpire. You, Gerald, must not be so magisterial: the slightest reproofs, like the finest edged instruments, are the most penetrating. And you, Florence, must recollect, that the effect of wit on a subject (and I don't dignify by that name the exuberance of your present childish vivacity,) is like that of the wrong end of a magnet, which has a high dispersing power, and drives off to the circumference every thing which the attracting power of sober reason has brought to one central point. Those who are so fortunate as to possess a mind of this double power should know when to apply each end of the magnet, using their reason when

improvement is desired, or the solid concerns of life are in question, and applying their wit occasionally to disperse the clouds of petty cares or trifling vexations that will sometimes darken the most peaceful scene.

Mr. Austin. Such a magnet, my dear Susan, not a few of your sex seem to have been gifted with. I could be more particular, but you tell me I must not set Gerald an example of being too complimentary.

Florence. I am sure I cannot accuse him of that error: he reserves his lordly privilege of finding fault for my particular benefit.

Mrs. Austin. A very common thing for a brother to do! Amy runs away with your share of civil things.

Gerald. Shake hands, Florence; I wont act Don any more.

Florence. You are a dear fellow always, and I wont tease you with my folly any more. I own it must be provoking, when you have a mind to be sensible.

Mrs. Austin. So, now the compact is settled, "Good night."

CHAP. III.

FRIDAY EVENING.

Florence. Mamma, I have been endeavouring to use the attracting power of the magnet all day to collect my thoughts: Miss Fanshaw says I have not been so steady for a long time.

Mrs. Austin. For her sake, as well as yours, I am glad of it; for I have often admired the patient good humour with which she awaits your return from your flights of fancy. This over vivacity must be still more tiresome to a teacher than absolute dulness. I wish you would learn to confine your attention to understanding and applying exactly what she explains to you, instead of endeavouring to devise what you think some compendious method of your own, which leads you into error, and, after repeated trials, great waste of time and ingenuity, occasions so much disgust, that you get out of temper, and give up the point, declaring "you don't see the use of the higher rules of arithmetic, or why, in

your musical exercises, you should write the same stupid things over and over again in every key, when one key is (according to you) a sufficient example of the different steps of the Logierian system."

a

Mr. Austin. You certainly are improved of late, Florence. I have not heard you for some weeks exclaim over your abbreviated music, "I wonder what I meant by this mark? I must go back: there now: no, no, that part comes in after the other page ;" and thus baulk me of my favourite air by some forgotten contrivance to save half an hour in copying. Nor have I lately seen any of the daubs you used to bring me in such triumph, saying, "I was only so many hours, or so many days, doing this, papa."

Florence. I have taken a great deal more time about my drawings since you made a general collection of my hasty sketches, and burned them all.

Mr. Austin. You would soon have filled the whole house with these proofs of genius! Florence. No, no, papa, not genius. I only thought

Mr. Austin. Ah, Flory, conscience answered there: there is a little self-conceit at the bottom of

all this: I will compound willingly for only a little. But what will it signify next month whether the drawing you showed me to day had been finished in one week or in three? The excellence of its execution will then only be thought of even by you! Believe me, whatever is bad has the effect of the negative sign you use in your arithmetic, and must be subtracted from the general sum of your merits, however brief the portion of time which has produced it, even if, according to John the carpenter's phrase, it had been "done in no time." Do not fall into the common mistake, that because you do a multiplicity of hasty faulty things, such as introducing false cadences into your songs, drawing your buildings out of perspective, speaking a variety of foreign languages fluently, without sufficient attention to their peculiar construction, you are therefore universally clever. You are young enough to learn to do well whatever you undertake; and this, Florence, I enforce chiefly with a view to character. The quantity of acquirement you know I value but little. Whether my daughter plays on three instruments or none, whether she draw in one style or ten, is a matter of indifference to me. Let me have "good sentences, and well pro