The more I conversed with Lucilla, the more I saw that good breeding in her was only the outward expression of humility, and not an art employed for the purpose of enabling her to do without it. We continued to converse on the subject of Miss Flam's fondness for the gay world. This introduced a natural expression of my admiration of Miss Stanley's choice of pleasures and pursuits so different from those of most other women of her age. With the most graceful modesty she said, "Nothing humbles me more than compliments; for when I compare what I hear with what I feel, I find the picture of myself drawn by a flattering friend so utterly unlike the original in my own heart, that I am more sunk by my own consciousness of the want of resemblance, than elated that another has not discovered it. It makes me feel like an imposter. If I contradict this favorable opinion, I am afraid of being accused of affectation; and if I silently swallow it, I am contributing to the deceit of passing for what I am not." This ingenious mode of disclaiming flattery only raised her in my esteem, and the more, as I told her such humble renunciation of praise could only proceed from that inward principle of genuine piety and devout feeling which made so amiable a part of her character. "How little," said she, "is the human heart known except to him who made it! While a fellow creature may admire our apparent devotion, he who appears to be its object, witnesses the wandering of the heart, which seems to be lifted up to him. He sees it roving to the ends of the earth, busied about any thing rather than himself, running after trifles which would not only dishonor Christian, but would disgrace a child. As to my very virtues, if I dare apply such a word to myself, they sometimes lose their character by not keeping their proper place. They become sins by infringing on higher duties. If I mean to perform an act of devotion, some crude plan of charity forces itself on my mind, and what with trying to drive out one, and to establish the other, I rise dissatisfied and unimproved, and resting my sole hope, not on the duty I have been performing, but on the mercy I have been offending." I assured her with all the simplicity of truth, and all the sincerity of affection, that this confession only served to raise my opinion of the piety she disclaimed; that such deep consciousness of imperfection, so quick a discernment of the slightest deviation, and such constant vigilance to prevent it, were the truest indications of an humble spirit; and that those who thus carefully guarded themselves against small errors, were in little danger of being betrayed into great ones. She replied, smiling, that "she should not be so angry with vanity, if it would be contented to keep its proper place among its vices; but her quarrel with it was, that it would mix itself among our virtues, and rob us of their reward."