forward;
this depreciating ill nature, one of the other, is not confined by any
means to the fair sex. Young men pick each other to pieces with even
more fierceness, but less ingenuity; they deal in a cut-and-hack sort
of sarcasm, and do not hesitate to use terms and insinuations of the
harshest kind, when a lady is in the case. Mary (to distinguish her
from her high-bred cousin, she was generally called Mary Charles) was
certainly disappointed when her wedding was postponed in consequence
of her uncle's death; but a much more painful feeling followed, when
she saw the admiration her lover, Edwin Lechmere, bestowed upon her
beautiful cousin. Mary Charles was herself a beauty--fair, open-eyed,
warm-hearted--_the_ beauty of Repton; but though feature by feature,
inch by inch, she was as handsome as Mary, yet in her cousin was the
grace and spirit given only by good society; the manners elevated by a
higher mind, and toned down by sorrow; a gentle softness, which a keen
observer of human nature told me once no woman ever possessed unless
she had deeply loved, and suffered from disappointed affection;
in short, she was far more refined, far more fascinating, than her
country cousin: besides, she was unfortunate, and that at once gave
her a hold upon the sympathies of the young curate: it did no more:
but Mary Charles did not understand these nice distinctions, and
nothing could exceed the change of manner she evinced when her cousin
and her betrothed were together.

Mary thought her cousin rude and petulant; but the true cause of the
change never occurred to her. Accustomed to the high-toned courtesy
of well-bred men, which is so little practised in the middle class of
English society, it never suggested itself, that placing her chair,
or opening the door for her to go out, or rising courteously when she
came into a room, was more than, as a lady, she had a right to expect;
in truth, she did not notice it at all; but she did notice and feel
deeply her cousin's alternate coldness and snappishness of manner. "I
would not," thought Mary, "have behaved so to her if she had been left
desolate; but in a little time, when my mother is more content, I will
leave Repton, and become independent by my talents." Never did she
think of the power delegated to her by, the Almighty without feeling
herself raised--ay, higher than she had ever been in the days of her
splendour--in the scale of moral usefulness; as every one must feel
whose