"One day he arrived quite unexpectedly when Miss Stanley was with me. He found us in my dressing-room reading together a _Dissertation on the power of religion to change the heart_. Dreading some levity, I strove to hide the book, but he took it out of my hand, and glancing his eye on the title, he said, laughing, 'This is a foolish subject enough; a _good heart_ does not want changing, and with a _bad_ one none of _us three_ have any thing to do.' Lucilla spoke not a syllable. All the light things he uttered, and which he meant for wit, so far from raising a smile, increased her gravity. She listened, but with some uneasiness, to a desultory conversation between us, in which I attempted to assert the power of the Almighty to rectify the mind, and alter the character. Lord Staunton treated my assertion as a wild chimera, and said, 'He was sure I had more understanding than to adopt such a methodistical notion;' professing at the same time a vague admiration of virtue and goodness, which, he said, bowing to Miss Stanley, were _natural_ where they existed at all; that a good heart did not want mending, and a bad one could not be mended, with other similar expressions, all implying contempt of my position, and exclusive compliment to her. "After dinner, Lucilla stole away from a conversation, which was not very interesting to her, and carried her book to the summer-house, knowing that Lord Staunton liked to sit long at table. But his lordship missing her for whom the visit was meant, soon broke up the party, and hearing which way she took, pursued her to the summer-house. After a profusion of compliments, expressive of his high admiration, he declared his passion in very strong and explicit terms, and requested her permission to make proposals to her father, to which he conceived she could have no possible objection. "She thanked him with great politeness for his favorable opinion, but frankly told him, that though extremely sensible of the honor he intended her, thanks were all she had to offer in return; she earnestly desired the business might go no further, and that he would spare himself the trouble of an application to her father, who always kindly allowed her to decide for herself in a concern of so much importance. "Disappointed, shocked, and irritated at a rejection so wholly unexpected, he insisted on knowing the cause. Was it his person? Was it his fortune? Was it his understanding to which she objected? She honestly assured him it was neither. His rank and fortune were above her expectations. To his natural advantages there could be no reasonable objection. He still vehemently insisted on her assigning the true cause. She was then driven to the necessity of confessing that she feared his principles were not those of a man with whom she could venture to trust her own.