MRS. DOUGLAS TO MRS. E. SANDFORD. My dearest Elizabeth will believe that Glenalta has charms which even Killarney cannot boast for me. Yes; though the word _home_ never meets my eye or ear without producing a _gulp_, which tells of other days, when that little monosyllable of four letters contained the _world_ for me, yet repose is so necessary to my existence, that I sighed for return to my peaceful glen, and the pain of concealing every feeling that warred against the happiness of my beloved children, from their acute observation, increased my restraint, and has converted the enjoyment of my _cell_ into more positive pleasure than I have felt for years. How gracious are the mercies shed upon our daily path, and how tender the dispensation which so often renders what we conceive to be inflictions, conducive to our comfort! Elizabeth, my spirits are unusually depressed, but you are expecting an answer to your letter, and I will not suffer my pen to forget its duty, nor wander from the subject of your inquiry, till I have given you what little aid, my longer experience of your present cares, may contribute. You think that my advice would be, that you should resign yourself exclusively to the charm of such society as you find amongst the Stanleys, No, dear friend; I would only allow you to _prefer_ them; but there is a net of kind, expansive benevolence which it would seem as if Nature loved to throw more widely in scenes of rural life than in any other. "Man made cities, God formed the country." It is very true, every heart must acknowledge the distinction, and yours my friend would desire to emulate, as far as the imperfect creature is enabled to do, the bounty of that Being who has placed you where all the sweet charities of fellowship may be called into exercise. I do not mean that you should mingle indiscriminately, nor _over-much_ in society: I would only say avoid unkindness; exclusion should be reserved for the unworthy, but not visited on those who have only the misfortune to be less pleasing than their neighbours. A judicious _assortment_ will always prevent the disagreeable effects which sometimes spring from neglect of selecting such people only as harmonize with each other in manners and modes of thinking. I should be more diffuse upon this subject, were there the slightest danger of your supposing for a moment that I could be the advocate of an _electioneering_ system. You know how I abhor the arts of popularity, and revere independence; but human virtues and vices are often separated from each other by such imperceptible shades, that in giving ourselves credit for the performance of the one, it is too often our lot to glide into the other. Selfishness is an arch fiend, and ever at hand to whisper temptation. I know that it is a prevailing opinion amongst a large number of respectable and worthy people, that we are bound to make profession of our creeds in the highways, and