Though I would not attribute the change to the cause assigned by Sir John, yet I confess we found, when we made our visit, no small revolution in Miss Bell Flam. The part of the Arcadian nymph, the reading lady, the lover of retirement, the sentimental admirer of domestic life, the censurer of thoughtless dissipation, was each acted in succession, but so skillfully touched that the shades of each melted in the other without any of those violent transitions which a less experienced actress would have exhibited: Sir John slyly, yet with affected gravity, assisting her to sustain this newly adapted character, which, however, he was sure would last no longer than the visit. When we returned home, we met the Miss Stanleys in the garden and joined them. "Don't you admire," said Sir John, "the versatility of Miss Bell's genius? You, Charles, are not the first man on whom an assumed fondness for rural delights has been practiced. A friend of mine was drawn in to marry, rather suddenly, a thorough-paced town-bred lady, by her repeated declarations of her passionate fondness for the country, and the rapture she expressed when rural scenery was the subject. All she knew of the country was, that she had now and then been on a party of pleasure at Richmond, in the fine summer months; a great dinner at the Star and Garter, gay company, a bright day, lovely scenery, a dance on the green, a partner to her taste, French horns on the water, altogether constituted a feeling of pleasure from which she had really persuaded herself that she was fond of the country. But when all these concomitants were withdrawn, when she had lost the gay partner, the dance, the horns, the flattery, and the frolic, and nothing was left but her books, her own dull mansion, her domestic employments, and the sober society of her husband, the pastoral vision vanished. She discovered, or rather _he_ discovered, but too late, that the country had not only no charms for her, but that it was a scene of constant ennui and vapid dullness. She languished for the pleasures she had quitted, and he for the comforts he had lost. Opposite inclinations led to opposite pursuits; difference of taste however, needed not to have led to a total disunion, had there been on the part of the lady such a degree of attachment as might have induced a spirit of accommodation, or such a fund of principle as might have taught her the necessity of making those sacrifices which affection, had it existed, would have rendered pleasant, or duty would have made light, had she been early taught self-government." Lucilla, smiling, said, "she hoped Sir John had a little over-charged the picture." He defended himself by declaring, "he drew from the life, and that from his long observations he could present us with a whole gallery of such portraits." He left me to continue my walk with the two Miss Stanleys.