192 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xiv 



I hope the girls had dancing enough on Saturday, they 

 could hardly stand when they came in. They are remark- 

 ably well, and look so blooming that I receive endless 

 compliments on their fraicheur. Dearest Bessy, I could 

 not help laughing at your charge that they should keep an 

 exact account of little items, letters, bills, etc.; they seem 

 to me as exact as you could be yourself. Sis and I find 

 daily something in the quiet qualities to love them the 

 better for, but Sis wishes exceedingly to inspire them with 

 some more showy ones. He tries to persuade them of 

 the solid virtue of benevolence in the art and love of con- 

 versing ; that they may by that power divert the real sorrow 

 they may also cheer and console; in short he finds very 

 pretty arguments in favour of a little coquetry. But do 

 not fear, I do not think you will find them one bit more 

 coquettes than when you trusted them to us. The firmest 

 conviction of the advantages of a quality will never teach 

 it us, and they would prove very sturdy pupils against even 

 the approaches of what they conceived evil. If he succeeds 

 in convincing them of the virtue of not giving way to a 

 disposition of silence, that casts almost imperceptibly a 

 gloom around them, he will do them a great service; and I 

 do not fear at all the coquetry that might ensue from his 

 doctrine. You will I am afraid, from what I have said, 

 think they are more silent than their neighbours, I have ex- 

 pressed myself so awkwardly. Not at all; Sismondi re- 

 proaches me more than he does them. Conversation is an 

 art learnt by foreigners from the moment they can speak, 

 and to which I cannot as I have told him aspire, nor is it 

 BO much needed in our dear untalking land. There is a 

 pretty gaiety about Emma, always ready to answer to any 

 liveliness and sometimes to throw it out herself, that will 

 cheer everybody that lives with or approaches her. There 

 is some disposition to silence in Fanny, which I am glad to 

 see Sismondi perseveringly combat, and I think no one 

 can be so persevering as he is. He says always he thinks 

 Emma the prettiest, but he acts as if he thought Fanny 

 was. he says there is something particularly pleasing to his 



