that you were so, still I cannot account for the metamorphosis. Apply a ligature that shall bind the branch of a tree, or a limb of the human body, in any particular curve, and there it rests. The bark, the wood, the pith of the one; the muscles, tendons, arteries of the other, obey the rule of distortion, and the removal of restraint effects no alteration; the crooked will not become straight. On the contrary, here I am a changeling in my mother's house; I see all objects with new powers of vision, and such as, I lament to add, render me ill satisfied with those who stand in the relations to me which I have now learned to appreciate. With a mind just awakened to affection, and a heart just opened to the genial influence of domestic love and harmony, my feelings, which this soft climate of Glenalta has unfolded, are blighted by the very thought of Selby. Yes, I sicken at the bare idea of return, and a consciousness which I only felt before upon _great_ occasions, now represents the whole mechanism of that artificial compact sealed by fashion in the most intolerable view to my imagination. I cannot call things by their old names; the words no longer appear to suit their purposes, and the new nomenclature, which now seems most appropriate, disgusts me. How can I apply the terms bold, indelicate, unfeeling, unaffectionate, to a _sister_, and not turn with horror from such sounds; or attribute the base design of selling a child's happiness, carrying a daughter to market, and disposing of her to the best bidder, with all the cunning and trickery of professed jockeyism--how _can_ I attach such devices to the character of a mother, and not shudder as I write the word? Yet all this is but an unexaggerated picture of those relations, as I have hitherto known them; an epitome of that world in which I have had my being, and though a fugitive feeling, perhaps, occasionally whispered disapprobation, and I _have_ now and then shrunk from certain violations of modesty or integrity in the conduct of those around me--such starts were but momentary. I quickly rejoined the beaten track, and pressed forward with the giddy throng. When I look at my aunt Douglas, I feel how I could worship such a parent. When I am with Emily, Charlotte, and Fanny, I say to myself, if I had such sisters how I could love them; then comes the sting, I _have_ a mother, I _have_ sisters, and my mind revolts from their society. Poor Ned of the Hill told Bentley that "man is _never_ happy." He was right, Glenalta would be Paradise did not the unwelcome intrusion of such reflections disturb its felicity.