"By kindness," resumed Mr. Stanley, "we gradually gained Lady Aston's confidence, and of that confidence we have availed ourselves to give something of a new face to the family. Her daughters, good as they were dutiful, by living in a solitude unenlivened by books, and unvaried by improving company, had acquired a manner rather resembling fearfulness than delicacy. Religious they were, but they had contracted gloomy views of religion. They considered it as something that must be endured in order to avoid punishment, rather than as a principle of peace, and trust, and comfort; as a task to be gone through, rather than as a privilege to be enjoyed. They were tempted to consider the Almighty as a hard master, whom however they were resolved to serve, rather than as a gracious father who was not only loving, but LOVE in the abstract. Their mother was afraid to encourage a cheerful look, lest it might lead to levity, or a sprightly thought, for fear it might have a wrong tendency. She forgot, or rather she did not know, that young women were not formed for contemplative life. She forgot that in all our plans and operations we should still bear in mind that there are two worlds. As it is the fault of too many to leave the _next_ out of their calculation, it was the error of Lady Aston, in forming the minds of her children, to leave out _this_. She justly considered heaven as their great aim and end; but neglected to qualify them for the present temporal life, on the due use and employment of which so obviously depends the happiness of that which is eternal. "Her charities were very extensive, but of these charities her sweet daughters were not made the active dispensers, because an old servant, who governed not only the family but her lady also, chose that office herself. Thus the bounty being made to flow in partial channels, the woman's relations and favorites almost entirely engrossing it, it did little comparative good. "With fair understandings the Miss Astons had acquired very little knowledge: their mother's scrupulous mind found something dangerous in every author who did not professedly write on religious subjects. If there were one exceptionable page in a book, otherwise valuable, instead of suppressing the page, she suppressed the book. And indeed, my dear Charles, grieved am I to think how few authors of the more entertaining kind we _can_ consider as perfectly pure, and put without caution, restriction, or mutilation, into the hands of our daughters. I am, however, of opinion, that as they will not always have their parents for tasters, and as they will everywhere, even in the most select libraries, meet with these mixed works, in which, though there is much to admire, yet there is something to expunge, it is the safest way to accustom them early to hear read the most unexceptionable parts of these books.