a religious
purpose. I have known him, when conversing with a man who would not have
relished a more sacred authority, seize on a sentiment in Tully's
Offices, for the lowest degree in his scale of morals, and then
gradually ascending, trace and exalt the same thought through Paley or
Johnson, or Addison or Bacon, till he has unsuspectedly landed his
opponent in the pure ethics of the Gospel, and surprised him into the
adoption of a Christian principle.

As I had heard there was a fine little flock of children, I was
surprised, and almost disappointed every time the door opened, not to
see them appear, for I already began to take an interest in all that
related to this most engaging family. The ladies having, to our great
gratification, sat longer than is usual at most tables, at length obeyed
the signal of the mistress of the house. They withdrew, followed by the
Miss Stanleys,

With grace
Which won who saw to wish their stay.

After their departure the conversation was not changed. There was no
occasion; it could not become more rational, and we did not desire that
it should become less pure. Mrs. Stanley and her fair friends had taken
their share in it with a good sense and delicacy which raised the tone
of our society; and we did not give them to understand by a loud laugh
before they were out of hearing, that we rejoiced in being emancipated
from the restraint of their presence.

Mrs. Stanley is a graceful and elegant woman. Among a thousand other
excellences, she is distinguished for her judgment in adapting her
discourse to the character of her guests, and for being singularly
skillful in selecting her topics of conversation. I never saw a lady who
possessed the talent of diffusing at her table so much pleasure to those
around her, without the smallest deviation from her own dignified
purity. She asks such questions as strangers may be likely to gain, at
least not to lose, credit by answering; and she suits her interrogations
to the kind of knowledge they may be supposed likely to possess. By
this, two ends are answered: while she gives her guest an occasion of
appearing to advantage, she puts herself in the way of gaining some
information. From want of this discernment, I have known ladies ask a
gentleman just arrived from the East Indies, questions about America;
and others, from the absence of that true delicacy, which, where it
exists, shows itself even on the smallest occasio