Of what meannesses will not love be guilty: it drove me to have recourse to my friend Mrs. Comfit to dissipate my doubts. From her I learned that that cold and comfortless season was mitigated at Stanley Grove by several feasts for the poor of different classes and ages. "Then, sir," continued she, "if you could see the blazing fires, and the abundant provisions! The roasting, and the boiling, and the baking! The house is all alive! On those days the drawers and shelves of Miss Lucilla's store-room are completely emptied. 'Tis the most delightful bustle, sir, to see our young ladies tying on the good women's warm cloaks, fitting their caps and aprons, and sending home blankets to the infirm who can not come themselves. The very little ones kneeling down on the ground to try on the poor girls' shoes--even little Miss Celia, and she is so tender--to fit them exactly and not hurt them! Last feast-day, not finding a pair small enough for a poor little girl, she privately slipped off her own and put on the child. It was some time before it was discovered that she herself was without shoes. We are all alive, sir. Parlor, and hall, and kitchen, all is in motion! Books, and business, and walks, and gardening, all are forgot for these few happy days." How I hated myself for my suspicion! And how I loved the charming creatures who could find in these humble but exhilarating duties an equivalent for the pleasures of the metropolis! "Surely," said I to myself, "my mother would call _this_ consistency, when the amusements of a religious family smack of the same flavor with its business and its duties." My heart was more than easy; it was dilated, while I congratulated myself in the thought that there _were_ young ladies to be found who could spend a winter not only unrepiningly but cheerfully and delightedly in the country. I am aware that were I to repeat my conversations with Lucilla, I should subject myself to ridicule by recording such cold and spiritless discourse on my own part. But I had not yet declared my attachment. I made it a point of duty not to violate my engagement with Mr. Stanley. I was not addressing declarations, but studying the character of her on whom the happiness of my life was to depend. I had resolved not to show my attachment by any overt act. I confined the expression of my affection to that _series of small, quiet attentions_, which an accurate judge of the human heart has pronounced to be the surest avenue to a delicate mind. I had, in the mean time, the inexpressible felicity to observe a constant union of feeling, as well as a general consonance of opinion between us. Every sentiment seemed a reciprocation of sympathy, and every look, of intelligence. This unstudied correspondence enchanted me the more as I had always considered that a conformity of tastes was nearly as necessary to conjugal happiness as a conformity of principles. CHAPTER XXXIII.