hand and thinking the sooner it was brought forward and discussed the better i sat very silent during the of a formal offer of marriage from this man who seemed very much disposed to doubt his senses when it was followed up by an answer as formal and decided from me why what can have changed you he exclaimed when i persisted in my refusal i am sure you must have understood my meaning when you rode about with me in the lanes down yonder i understood that you were kind enough to lend me a horse oh yes i will always be kind to you miss finding it not do to speak of kindness and to be thus reminded of my past folly while the music sir charles had just been singing lay open before me i repeated my words with an emphasis so strongly marked wiu impatience and contempt that my admirer los his temper and with it the little propriety of conduct which alone had rendered him tolerable i see what you are at said he with the most insulting sir charles has a pretty income to be sure but what is that to people who live as he does i ll tell you what miss you ll not soon meet with another man to lay an estate like mine before you all in a ring fence with plenty of game for your dainty appetite but you ll the day yet when you see another mrs which you shall before you ve made sure of sir charles and so a ring he walked ofi closing the door him with a thundering sound that brought the startled and from the servants hall the scene being now completely over i felt really glad that it had been no worse conscious as i was that the of my late behaviour deserved if possible a punishment more severe nor could i behold from my window mrs and her brother trotting out of town in high with the butcher s boy and of a very little way behind while neither of their heads were turned to give a parting nod feeling that i had richly to lose my place in their regard it is almost impossible to lose the love we once possessed without a melancholy sense that something has been taken away from us although it might not while it lasted be of any real mrs was a warm the pains of pleasing hearted well meaning creature and had loved me better perhaps than many whose i had been more to obtain she was now in all probability struck off from my list of friends offended perhaps wounded she must think me ungrateful and i had the misery of reflecting that she might think so with perfect truth every loss we experience makes us pause and examine what is left and i turned upon my own heart to see what stores i had yet to draw upon for satisfaction under present circumstances i had indeed no wish to call mrs back but this simple so to others plunged me into a train of gloomy reflections against the sadness of which i was with any kind of i had now been living a long time amongst those who thought religion an unnecessary burden to take up so long as life could be made pleasant without it and as i made it my business to fall in with the sentiments of those around me i was but too ready to treat religion with as little regard as they did the inevitable consequence was that my mind was more empty than ever of any kind of consolation that i was less prepared for the rough accidents of life and worst of all that i was rapidly receding from that heavenly goal to which the only hope that never fails us is directed the circumstance which had cost me the loss of an old friend was never alluded to by lady or sir charles so much does politeness wear the character of real kindness but mrs was in her ridicule and quoted poor mrs on every possible occasion wondering than the day where i could have gathered up such people while i could call to mind without much difficulty the time when such people were not entirely excluded from her own sphere of existence to my new friends i felt unspeakable gratitude for their forbearance and had it not been for the fascination of their society i should have wisely my present abode where it was in vain to flatter myself that i was wished for by the lady of the house i was besides in considerable difficulty about where to go next and the fact of seeing no shelter fur our heads in any other place has a great tendency to reconcile our remaining where we are impossible as it was on first entering the house of mr to that the master of it or rather he who should have been the master could ever be an object of interest i found during a very short stay that pity has the power to the character and invest even the person with attractions that were never dreamed of before this spell was put in force long and intimately as i had been acquainted with the world and low as i had bent myself beneath its influence i had not acquired all its bad habits most certainly not that of on the fallen my delight was often to take part with the weak whether the strife in which they were engaged was right or wrong and in this spirit i never failed to throw in a word on behalf of the helpless husband when i thought him in danger of being borne down by his wife s authority i believe the little gentleman had never experienced so much consideration before and his unbounded was expressed by and b� and which were carefully watched and by one 