"How melancholy a consideration is it," said I, "that so superior a woman should live so much below her high destination! She is doubtless utterly destitute of any thought of religion." "You are much mistaken," replied Sir John, "I will not indeed venture to pronounce that she entertains much _thought_ about it; but she by no means denies its truth, nor neglects occasionally to exhibit its outward and visible signs. She has not yet completely forgotten All that the nurse and all the priest have taught. I do not think that, like Lady Denham, she considers it as a commutation, but she preserves it as a habit. A religious exercise, however, never interferes with a worldly one. They are taken up in succession, but with this distinction, the worldly business is to be done, the religious one is not altogether to be left undone. She has a moral chemistry which excels in the amalgamation of contradictory ingredients. On a Sunday at Melbury castle if by any strange accident she and her lord happen to be there together, she first reads him a sermon, and plays at cribbage with him the rest of the evening. In town one Sunday when she had a cold she wrote a tract on the sacrament, for her maids, and then sat up all night at deep play. She declared if she had been successful she would have given her winnings to charity; but as she lost some hundreds, she said she could now with a safe conscience borrow that sum from her charity purse, which she had hoped to add to it, to pay her debt of honor." Next day, within two hours of her appointed time, she came, and was complimented by Sir John on her punctuality. "Indeed," said she, "I _am_ rather late, but I met with such a fascinating German novel, that it positively chained me to my bed till past three. I assure you, I never lose time by not rising. In the course of a few winters I have exhausted half Hookham's catalogue, before some of my acquaintance are awake, or I myself out of bed." We soon stopped at the humble door of which we were in search. Sir John conducted Lady Melbury up the little winding stairs. I assisted Lady Belfield. We reached the room, where Fanny was just finishing a beautiful bunch of jonquils. "How picturesque," whispered Lady Melbury to me. "Do lend me your pencil; I must take a sketch of that sweet girl with the jonquils in her hand. My dear creature," continued she, "you must not only let me have these, but you must make me twelve dozen more flowers as fast as possible, and be sure let me have a great many sprigs of jessamine and myrtle." Then snatching up a wreath of various colored geraniums--"I must try this on my head by the glass." So saying she ran into an adjoining room, the door of which was open; Lady Belfield having before stolen into it to speak to the poor invalid.