666 
© I defy you, Mr. Ranby, to produce one. 
* My dear,’ replied he, ¢ as you charged your- 
self with all, I thought it. would be letting 
you off cheaply by naming only two or three, 
such as > Here, fearing matters would 
£0 too far, I interposed 5 and softening things 
as well as I could for the lady, said, § I con- 
ceived that Mr. Ranby meant, that, though 
she partook of the general Pa URny nate 
Ranby interrupting me with more spirit than 
T tho ought he possessed, said, ¢ General cor- 
ruption, sir, must be the source of particular 
corruption. I did not mean that my wife 
was worse than other woien—* Worse, 
Mr. Ranby, worse!’ cried she. Ranby, for 
the first time in his life not minding her, 
went on.—* As she is always insisting that 
the. whole species is corrupt, she cannot 
help allowing that. she herself has not quite 
escaped the infection. Now to be a sinner in 
the gross, anda’saint in the detail—that is 
to have all sins and no faultseis a thing I 
do not quite comprehend.’ 
‘* After he had left the room, which he 
did, as the shortest way of allaying the storm, 
she apologizing for him, said, ¢ He was a well 
Meaning man, and ac‘ed up to the little light 
he had,;” but added, ¢ that he was unacquaint- 
ed ae religious, feelings, and knew little 
of the nature “of convertion.’ 
*¢ Mrs. Ranby, I found, seems to think: 
Christianity as a kind of freemasonry, and 
therefore thinks it superfluous to speak on 
Serious subjects to any but the initiated. If 
they do. not returi the sign, she gives them up 
as blind and dead.. She thinles she can only 
make herself intelligible to those to whom 
€ertain peculiar phrases are familiar; and 
though her friends imay be correct, devout, 
and both doctrinally and practically pious, yet 
if they cannot catch a certain mystic mean- 
ing—-if there is not a sympathy of intelli- 
gence between them and her, if they do not 
fully conceive of i impressions, and cannot re- 
spond to mysterious communications, she 
Holds them unworthy of intercourse with her. 
She does not so much insist on high moral 
tee ente as the criterion of their worth, as 
on their own account of -their internal feel- 
ings.” 
The following character is drawn with 
great discrimination and spirit, and for the 
moral it conveys, we are glad to give ita 
place im our pagese—** Sir John carried me 
one morning to call on Lady Denham, a 
dowager of fashion, who had grown old in 
. the trammels of the world. Though she 
scems resolved to die in the harness, yet she 
piques herself on being very religious, and no 
one inveighs against infidelity or impiety with 
more pointed censure.” ‘She has a gran- 
daughter,” said Sir John, ‘ who lives with 
her,and whom she hastrained to walk precisely 
in her own steps, and which she thinks is the 
way she should go. £ The girl,’ added he, * is 
weil-looking, and will have a handsome for- 
_ of the larg 
_ Preparation. 
ef the preceding Saturday night 5 
Retrospect of Domestic Literature—-Novels. 
tune, and [ am persuaded that, as my friend, 
I ceuld procure you a good reception.” 
«¢ We were shewn into her dressing-room, 
where we found her witha book lyiag open 
before her. From a glance which I caught 
ge blacix letter, I saw it was a Week's 
lay open before her from breakfast till dinner, 
at thisseason, It was Passion week. But as 
this is the room in which she sees all her 
morning visitors, to none ef\whom she is 
ever denied, even at this !period of retreat, 
she could only. pick up momentary snatches 
of reading in the short intervals between one 
person going out and another coming in. Miss 
Denham sat by, painting flowers. 
“F Sir John asked her, If she would go 
and dine in a family way with lady Belfield. 
She drew up, looked grave, and said, with 
much solemnity, That she should never think: 
of going abroad at this holy season. Sir John 
said, ‘ as we have neither cards nor company, 
I Ehguaht you might as well have ao your 
chicken: im my house as in your own.’ But 
though ske thought ita sin to dine with a 
sober family, she made herself amends for 
the sacrifice, by letting us see that her heart 
was brimful of the w orld pressed down, and 
running over. 
her abstinence from its diversions, by in- 
dulging in the -only pleasure which she 
thought compatible with the sanctity of the 
bc ascne-unichaitayle gossip, and unbounded 
calumny. She should not toucha card, but 
she played over to Sir John the whole game 
told him 
by what a shameful inattention Hee partner 
had lost the odd trick 5 and that. she should 
not have been beaten after all, had not her 
adversary, she verily beligwedy contrived to 
look over her hand. 
‘« Sir John seized the only reiritste in pkich 
we were alone, to ask her to add a guinea to 
a little sum he was collecting for a poor 
tradésman with a large family; who had 
been burnt outa tew nights ago. * His wife,’ 
added he, ¢ was your faveurite maid Dixon, 
and both are deserving people.’==* Ah, poor 
Dixon! She was Alwins unlucky,’ replied the 
lady. © How could they be so careless ? 
Surely they might have put the fire out 
sooner. They should not have let it pet a-heade 
I wonder people are not more active.’ It 
is too late to inquire about that,® said Sir ~ 
John, ¢ the question now is, not how their 
loss might have been prevented, but how it 
may be repaired.’ ¢ Iam really quite sorry,” 
said she, ¢ that I can give you nothing. I 
have had so many calls lately, that my cha- 
rity purse is completely exhausted—and that 
abominable inconie-tax makes me quite a 
beggar.’ 
«« While she was speaking, I glanced on 
the open leaf at-=* Charge them that are rich 
in this world that they be ready to give————y 
and directing my eye turther, it fell on—* Be 
not. 
This book, it seems, constantly © 
She indemnified herself for - 
