d you profess
to have for Miss Bruce, treat her name with some respect!--I am accepted
by Margaret Ibbotson!"

"I dare say you are? Margaret Ibbotson! So this is at the bottom of
all your energy about the Hopes!"

"I admired Hope before I ever saw Margaret, with sufficient energy to
prompt me to anything I mean to do in his support. But Margaret has
certainly exalted my feelings towards him, as she has towards everything
morally great and beautiful."

"I hope you will all make yourselves happy with your greatness and your
beauty: for these friends of yours seem likely to have little else left
to comfort themselves with."

"They will be happy with their greatness and loveliness, sister; for it
is Heaven's decree that they should. Why will you not let yourself be
happy in witnessing it, Priscilla? Why will you not throw off the
restraint of bad feelings, and do magnanimous justice to this family,
and, having thus opened and freed your mind, glory in their goodness--
the next best thing to being as good as they? You have power of mind to
do this: the very force with which you persist in persecuting them shows
that you have power for better things. Believe me, they are full of the
spirit of forgiveness. Do but try--"

"Thank you. I am glad you are aware of my power. If they forgive me
for anything, it shall be for my power."

"That is not for you to determine, happily. To what extent they forgive
is between God and themselves. You lie under their forgiveness, whether
you will or not. I own, Priscilla, I would fain bestow on Margaret a
sister whom she might respect rather than forgive."

"Pray how many persons have you persuaded that Margaret Ibbotson is to
be my sister-in-law?"

"Very few; for your sake, scarcely any. We have been willing to allow
you your own time and methods for extricating yourself from the
difficulties you have made for yourself by your inconsiderate talk about
Miss Bruce. I own I cannot conceive how you could originate and carry
on such a device. You must now get out of the scrape in your own way."

"I am glad you have told so few people of your entanglement. It makes
it an easier matter to help you. I shall deny the engagement
everywhere."

"That will hardly avail against my testimony."

"It will, when you are gone. The Deerbrook people always attend to the
last speaker. Indeed, I think I have the majority with me now, as the
events of last night pretty plainly show."