h of
the unfortunate, I am strewing my own path with roses.

LETITIA. My sweet friend, not quite so poetical, and a little more
particular.

CHARLOTTE. Hands off, Letitia. I feel the rage of simile upon me; I
can't talk to you in any other way. My brother has a heart replete with
the noblest sentiments, but then, it is like--it is like--Oh! you
provoking girl, you have deranged all my ideas--it is like--Oh! I have
it--his heart is like an old maiden lady's band-box; it contains many
costly things, arranged with the most scrupulous nicety, yet the
misfortune is that they are too delicate, costly, and antiquated for
common use.

LETITIA. By what I can pick out of your flowery description, your
brother is no beau.

CHARLOTTE. No, indeed; he makes no pretension to the character. He'd
ride, or rather fly, an hundred miles to relieve a distressed object, or
to do a gallant act in the service of his country; but, should you drop
your fan or bouquet in his presence, it is ten to one that some beau at
the farther end of the room would have the honour of presenting it to
you before he had observed that it fell. I'll tell you one of his
antiquated, anti-gallant notions. He said once in my presence, in a room
full of company,--would you believe it?--in a large circle of ladies,
that the best evidence a gentleman could give a young lady of his
respect and affection was to endeavour in a friendly manner to rectify
her foibles. I protest I was crimson to the eyes, upon reflecting that I
was known as his sister.

LETITIA. Insupportable creature! tell a lady of her faults! If he is so
grave, I fear I have no chance of captivating him.

CHARLOTTE. [His conversation is like a rich, old-fashioned brocade,--it
will stand alone; every sentence is a sentiment. Now you may judge what
a time I had with him, in my twelve months' visit to my father. He read
me such lectures, out of pure brotherly affection, against the extremes
of fashion, dress, flirting, and coquetry, and all the other dear
things which he knows I dote upon, that I protest his conversation made
me as melancholy as if I had been at church; and, heaven knows, though I
never prayed to go there but on one occasion, yet I would have exchanged
his conversation for a psalm and a sermon. Church is rather melancholy,
to be sure; but then I can ogle the beaux, and be regaled with "here
endeth the first lesson," but his brotherly _here_, you would think had
no end.] You captivate