physicians were mentioned, and Mr. Hope expressed with strong feeling his emotions on being at first told that they could not save her. Tom Hinckley declared his opinion that she was spoiled. Mr. Hope contradicted him with eagerness, and assured him that in another season she would be as well as ever. He should turn her out to grass!-Lady Jane proved to be a favourite

mare.

At Mr. Field's at Field House, they found the table covered with Methodistical books; and Rosina heard doctrines discussed and tenets expounded in a manner wholly new to her. There was a union of simplicity and energy in Mrs. and Miss Field's manner, which rendered it impossible to suspect them of hypocrisy; and the new ideas they awakened furnished Rosina with materials for profitable consideration. At Barham Lodge again, the Miss Petersons made such a display of accomplishments and blue-ism, as to give her a sickening of pretension; and at Stepsford, only five miles from her native village, old Mrs. Joliffe and her nieces had so much tittle-tattle to relate of their neighbours, the Joneses, and the Whites, and the Simpsons, and the Atkinsons, and ap

peared to deem all the rest of the world so uninteresting in comparison, that Rosina was led to question whether she herself were not somewhat too much disposed to think Summerfield affairs of primary importance. Mrs. Shivers and Miss Pakenham amused themselves by commenting on the varieties of character which they met in these visits, without indulging in ill-nature; and Rosina profited more by the casual morals thus drawn, than if they had fallen from the lips of persons of whose station and opinion she stood less in awe. She saw Miss Pakenham receive attention and admiration without displaying any elation or self conceit; she heard folly reprehended as freely in the wealthy and titled as in the insignificant; she heard pretension ridiculed, and conscientious limitation of expenses praised. heard girls laughed at for dressing beyond their station and neglecting domestic duties, and their parents blamed with more severity, for bringing them up improperly. Miss Pakenham was lively and acute; Mrs. Shivers's conversation, without any tinge of effort or pedantry, united enough of natural wit with acquired knowledge, to require a little effort to keep up with her. She played ex

VOL. II.

E

She

tremely well on the harp, and Rosina had an opportunity of pleasantly improving herself by accompanying her on an excellent grand piano. Her fancy for learning Italian returned when she listened to Maria's tantalizing encomiums of Tasso, and saw the beautiful engravings in Mrs. Shivers's Gierusalemme. An hour devoted every morning to this study agreeably exercised her mind; and the profusion of fine prints and drawings in the portfolios around her, only made it a difficult task to decide which she should first attempt to copy. The library was a world of happiness in itself. Surrounded by so many sources of amusement, what wonder that Rosina's spirits should rapidly recover from their depression, and that she should learn to think of Mr. Huntley with a degree of indifference, which to herself she called resignation?" Absence," it has been observed, "like a puff of wind, makes a well kindled flame burn brighter, but blows a smaller one out." The visit was prolonged from a week to rather more than a fortnight, and its conclusion was gayer than its opening. Mr. Hope and the Hinckleys dined at the Pleasance; and perhaps Rosina's estimate of Mr. Huntley's manners and

education was rather altered by the glimpses thus afforded of young men in a rank of life superior to his own; so that from thinking of him somewhat more highly than he had deserved, she now began to rate him rather below his real worth.

On the day after her quitting the Pleasance, Mrs. Shivers and Miss Pakenham were going to Hastings. She returned to Summerfield with abundant materials for long details to her mother and sister, and with a heart scarcely retaining the impress of its sometime love.

CHAPTER IV.

FINE ARTS.

AND how sped Mr. Huntley's painting and wooing?

With satisfaction, almost with exultation, he had heard of Rosina's projected absence. Somehow, she had always seemed to stand across his path -his feelings and language had been misconstrued, nor did there seem any chance of his explaining them, till he had an opportunity of speaking in plainer terms than he had yet dared to

use.

Rosina was gone, and the path was clear! He could finish Hannah's portrait and besiege her heart at the same time. But Huntley was very wary; he was in thorough earnest, and his genius was as remarkable in love-making as in any other art, accomplishment, or science, which he had yet mastered. The more his acquaintance