AN ADVENTURE. Never had the heart of Cecilia felt so light, so gay, so glowing as after the transaction of this affair: her life had never appeared to her so important, nor her wealth so valuable. To see five helpless children provided for by herself, rescued from the extremes of penury and wretchedness, and put in a way to become useful to society, and comfortable to themselves; to behold their feeble mother, snatched from the hardship of that labour which, over-powering her strength, had almost destroyed her existence, now placed in a situation where a competent maintenance might be earned without fatigue, and the remnant of her days pass in easy employment--to view such sights, and have power to say “_These deeds are mine!_” what, to a disposition fraught with tenderness and benevolence, could give purer self-applause, or more exquisite satisfaction? Such were the pleasures which regaled the reflections of Cecilia when, in her way home, having got out of her chair to walk through the upper part of Oxford Street, she was suddenly met by the old gentleman whose emphatical addresses to her had so much excited her astonishment. He was passing quick on, but stopping the moment he perceived her, he sternly called out “Are you proud? are you callous? are you hard of heart so soon?” “Put me, if you please, to some trial!” cried Cecilia, with the virtuous courage of a self-acquitting conscience. “I already have!” returned he, indignantly, “and already I have found you faulty!” “I am sorry to hear it,” said the amazed Cecilia, “but at least I hope you will tell me in what?” “You refused me admittance,” he answered, “yet I was your friend, yet I was willing to prolong the term of your genuine [tranquillity]! I pointed out to you a method of preserving peace with your own soul; I came to you in behalf of the poor, and instructed you how to merit their prayers; you heard me, you were susceptible, you complied! I meant to have repeated the lesson, to have tuned your whole heart to compassion, and to have taught you the sad duties of sympathising humanity. For this purpose I called again, but again I was not admitted! Short was the period of my absence, yet long enough for the completion of your downfall!” “Good heaven,” cried Cecilia, “how dreadful is this language! when have you called, Sir? I never heard you had been at the house. Far from refusing you admittance, I wished to see you.” “Indeed?” cried he, with some softness, “and are you, in truth, not proud? not callous? not hard of heart? Follow me, then, and visit the humble and the poor, follow me, and give comfort to the fallen and dejected!”