abashed, I looked upon them, and thought what
a pretty sight a fine lady was, and thought how well my mother must
have appeared, since she was so much more graceful than these ladies
were; and when I heard them compliment my father on the admirable
behaviour of his child, and say how well he had brought me up, I
thought to myself, "Papa does not much mind my manners, if I am
but a good girl; but it was my uncle that taught me to behave like
mamma."--I cannot now think my uncle was so rough and unpolished as
he said he was, for his lessons were so good and so impressive that I
shall never forget them, and I hope they will be of use to me as long
as I live: he would explain to me the meaning of all the words he
used, such as grace and elegance, modest diffidence and affectation,
pointing out instances of what he meant by those words, in the manners
of the ladies and their young daughters who came to our church; for,
besides the ladies of the Manor-House, many of the neighbouring
families came to our church because my father preached so well.

It must have been early in the spring when my uncle went away, for the
crocuses were just blown in the garden, and the primroses had begun to
peep from under the young budding hedge-rows.--I cried as if my heart
would break, when I had the last sight of him through a little opening
among the trees, as he went down the road. My father accompanied him
to the market-town, from whence he was to proceed in the stage-coach
to London. How tedious I thought all Susan's endeavours to comfort me
were. The stile where I first saw my uncle, came into my mind, and I
thought I would go and sit there, and think about that day; but I was
no sooner seated there, than I remembered how I had frightened him
by taking him so foolishly to my mother's grave, and then again how
naughty I had been when I sate muttering to myself at this same stile,
wishing that he, who had gone so far to buy me books, might never come
back any more: all my little quarrels with my uncle came into my mind,
now that I could never play with him again, and it almost broke
my heart. I was forced to run into the house to Susan for that
consolation I had just before despised.

Some days after this, as I was sitting by the fire with my father,
after it was dark, and before the candles were lighted, I gave him
an account of my troubled conscience at the church-stile, when I
remembered how unkind I had been to my uncle when he first