ery animated conversation.

Then came matters of more interest. What Beatrice seemed above all
to wish for, was to relieve herself by the expression of her intense
dislike to the ball, and all the company, very nearly without exception,
and there were few elders to whom a young damsel could talk so much
without restraint as to Aunt Mary.

The waltzing, too, how glad she was that grandmamma had forbidden it,
and here Henrietta chimed in. She had never seen waltzing before; had
only heard of it as people in their quiet homes hear and think of the
doings of the fashionable world, and in her simplicity was perfectly
shocked and amazed at Jessie, a sort of relation, practising it and
pleading for it.

"My dear!" said Beatrice, laughing, "I do not know what you would do
if you were me, when there is Matilda St. Leger polka-ing away half the
days of her life."

"Yes, but Lady Matilda is a regular fashionable young lady."

"Ay, and so is Jessie at heart. It is the elegance, and the air, and
the society that are wanting, not the will. It is the circumstances that
make the difference, not the temper."

"Quite true, Busy Bee," said her aunt, "temper may be the same in very
different circumstances."

"But it is very curious, mamma," said Henrietta, "how people can be
particular in one point, and not in another. Now, Bee, I beg your
pardon, only I know you don't mind it, Jessie did not approve of your
skating."

"Yes," said Beatrice, "every one has scruples of his own, and laughs at
those of other people."

"Which I think ought to teach Busy Bees to be rather less stinging,"
said Aunt Mary.

"But then, mamma," said Henrietta, "we must hold to the right scruples,
and what are they? I do not suppose that in reality Jessie is less--less
desirous of avoiding all that verges towards a want of propriety then we
are, yet she waltzes. Now we were brought up to dislike such things."

"O, it is just according to what you are brought up to," said Beatrice.
"A Turkish lady despises us for showing our faces: it is just as you
think it."

"No, that will not do," said Henrietta. "Something must be actually
wrong. Mamma, do say what you think."

"I think, my dear, that woman has been mercifully endowed with an
instinct which discerns unconsciously what is becoming or not, and
whatever at the first moment jars on that sense is unbecoming in her
own individual case. The fineness of the perception may be destroyed by
education, or wi