ve illustration, to instruct the lowly-fortuned man that he
should bear with those imperfections, inseparable from that dangerous
prosperity from which he is happily exempt."--But we sadly interrupt
your story.--

"You are very kind, ladies, to speak with so much indulgence of my
foible," said miss Withers, and was going to proceed, when little
Louisa Manners asked, "Pray, are not equipages carriages?" "Yes, miss
Manners, an equipage is a carriage." "Then I am sure if my papa had
but one equipage I should be very proud; for once when my papa talked
of keeping a one-horse chaise, I never was so proud of any thing
in my life: I used to dream of riding in it, and imagine I saw my
playfellows walking past me in the streets."

"Oh, my dear miss Manners," replied miss Withers, "your young head
might well run on a thing so new to you; but you have preached an
useful lesson to me in your own pretty rambling story, which I shall
not easily forget. When you were speaking with such delight of the
pleasure the sight of a farm-yard, an orchard, and a narrow slip of
kitchen-garden, gave you, and could for years preserve so lively
the memory of one short ride, and that probably through a flat
uninteresting country, I remembered how early I learned to disregard
the face of Nature, unless she were decked in picturesque scenery; how
wearisome our parks and grounds became to me, unless some improvements
were going forward which I thought would attract notice: but those
days are gone.--I will now proceed in my story, and bring you
acquainted with my real parents.

Alas! I am a changeling, substituted by my mother for the heiress of
the Lesley family: it was for my sake she did this naughty deed; yet,
since the truth has been known, it seems to me as if I had been the
only sufferer by it; remembering no time when I was not Harriot
Lesley, it seems as if the change had taken from me my birthright.

Lady Harriot had intended to nurse her child herself; but being seized
with a violent fever soon after its birth, she was not only unable to
nurse it, but even to see it, for several weeks. At this time I was
not quite a month old, when my mother was hired to be miss Lesley's
nurse--she had once been a servant in the family--her husband was then
at sea.

She had been nursing miss Lesley a few days, when a girl who had the
care of me brought me into the nursery to see my mother. It happened
that she wanted something from her own home, which s