las the effects of a highly cultivated
understanding shedding its mild radiance on the path of domestic life,
heightening its charms, and softening its asperities, with the benign
spirit of Christianity. Her charity was not like that of Mrs. Fox; she
did not indulge herself in the purchase of elegant ornaments, and then,
seated in the easy chair of her drawing-room, extort from her visitors
money to satisfy the wants of those who had claims on her own bounty.
No: she gave a large portion of her time, her thoughts, her fortune,
to the most sacred of all duties--charity, in its most comprehensive
meaning. Neither did her knowledge, like that of Mrs. Bluemits,
evaporate in pedantic discussion or idle declamation, but showed itself
in the tenor of a well-spent life, and in the graceful discharge of
those duties which belonged to her sex and station. Next to goodness
Mary most ardently admired talents. She knew there were many of her own
sex who were justly entitled to the distinction of literary fame. Her
introduction to the circle at Mrs. Bluemits's had disappointed her; but
they were mere pretenders to the name. How different from those
described by one no less amiable and enlightened herself!--"Let such
women as are disposed to be vain of their comparatively petty
attainments look up with admiration to those contemporary shining
examples, the venerable Elizabeth Carter and the blooming Elizabeth
Smith. In them let our young ladies contemplate profound and various
learning, chastised by true Christian humility. In them let them
venerate acquirements which would have been distinguished in a
university, meekly softened, and beautifully shaded by the exertion of
every domestic virtue, the unaffected exercise of every feminine
employment." [1]

[1] "Coelebs."

CHAPTER XXXI.

"The gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares;
The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate.
She glares in balls, front boxes, and the ring--
A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched thing!
Pride, pomp, and state, but reach her outward part;
She sighs, and is no duchess at her heart."

POPE

FOR many months Mary was doomed to experience all the vicissitudes of
hope and fear, as she heard of battles and sieges in which her lover had
a part. He omitted no opportunity of writing to her; b