"All his good qualities," said Mr. Stanley, "for want of religion have a flaw in them. His good nature is so little directed by judgment, that while it serves the individual, it injures the public. As a brother magistrate, I am obliged to act in almost constant opposition to him, and his indiscretions do more mischief by being of a nature to increase his popularity. He is fully persuaded that occasional intoxication is the best reward for habitual industry; and insists that it is good old English kindness to make the church ringers periodically tipsy at the holidays, though their families starve for it the whole week. He and I have a regular contest at the annual village fairs, because he insists that my refusing to let them begin on a Sunday is abridging their few rights, and robbing them of a day which they might add to their pleasure without injury to their profit. He allows all the strolling players, mountebanks, and jugglers to exhibit, because, he says, it is a charity. His charity, however, is so short-sighted that he does not see that while these vagabonds are supplying the wants of the day, their improvident habits suffer them to look no further; that his own workmen are spending their hard-earned money in these illegal diversions, while the expense is the least mischief which their daughters incur." Our next visit was to Mr. Carlton, whom I had found, in one or two previous interviews, to be a man of excellent sense, and a perfect gentleman. Sir John renewed with pleasure his acquaintance with the husband, while Lady Belfield was charmed to be introduced to the wife, with whose character she was so enamored, and whose gentle manners were calculated to confirm the affection which her little history had inspired. CHAPTER XXVII. Though Mr. Stanley had checked my impetuosity in my application to him, and did not encourage my addresses with a promptitude suited to the ardor of my affection: yet as the warmth of my attachment, notwithstanding I made it a duty to restrain its outward expression, could not escape either his penetration or that of his admirable wife, they began a little to relax in the strictness with which they had avoided speaking of their daughter. They never indeed introduced the subject themselves, yet it some how or other never failed to find its way into all conversation in which I was one of the interlocutors. Sitting one day in Lucilla's bower with Mrs. Stanley, and speaking, though in general terms, on the subject nearest my heart, with a tenderness and admiration as sincere as it was fervent, I dwelt particularly on some instances which I had recently heard from Edwards, of her tender attention to the sick poor, and her zeal in often visiting them, without regard to weather, or the accommodation of a carriage.