inly that a sprightly look and lively elocution made the chief merit
of the best _bons mots_ that were uttered among them.

After she had spent about five years with Lady Brumpton, this lady was
seized with a nervous fever which all the art of her physicians could
not entirely conquer. Her spirits were extremely affected and her
friends decreased in their attentions as her vivacity decayed. She had
indeed always been superior to her company in every requisite to please
and entertain, therefore when she could not bear her part the
conversations flagged; they dwindled from something like wit into oddity
and then sunk into dullness. She was no longer equally qualified to
please or to be pleased; her mind was not at unison with shallow jesters
and therefore they could make no harmony.

Her disorder wore her extremely and turned to an atrophy. In that
gradual decay she often told Lady Mary she was awakened from a dream of
vanity; she saw how much a desire to gain the applause of a few people
had made her forget the more necessary aim of obtaining the approbation
of her Creator. She had indeed no criminal actions to lay to her charge;
but how should she? Vanity preserved her from doing anything which she
imagined would expose her to censure. She had done some things
commendable, but she feared the desire of being commended was part of
her motive. The humility and calmness of a true Christian disposition
had appeared to her meanness of spirit or affectation, and a religious
life as the extremest dullness; but now too late she saw her error, and
was sensible she had never been in the path of happiness. She had not
erred from want of knowledge, but from the strong impulse of vanity
which led her to neglect it; but sickness, by lowering her spirits, had
taken away the false glare which dazzled her eyes, and restored her to
her sight.

Lady Brumpton was sensible of her approaching death some weeks before
she expired, and was perfectly resigned. Lady Mary had a second time the
melancholy office of closing the eyes of a benefactress and relation
whom she sincerely loved. Lady Brumpton, to remove from her any anxiety
on her own account, acquainted her, as soon as her disease became
desperate, that she had bequeathed her ten thousand pounds, and all her
plate and jewels.

Lady Mary found this information true, and received the sum. She was
tenderly concerned for the loss of so good a friend; and by the various
circumstances of her