"There are two ladies here from Birmingham, so far beyond any ladies that we have to boast of, that some of us begin to suspect that Deerbrook is not the Athens and Arcadia united that we have been accustomed to believe it. You can have no idea how our vanity is mortified, and our pride abased, by finding what the world can produce out of the bounds of Deerbrook. We bear our humiliation wonderfully, however. Our Verdon woods echo with laughter; and singing is heard beside the brook. The voices of children, grown and ungrown, go up from all the meadows around; and wit and wisdom are wafted over the surface of our river at eventide. The truth is, these girls have brought in a new life among us, and there is not one of us, except the children, that is not some years younger for their presence. Mr Grey deserts his business for them, like a school-boy; and Mr Rowland watches his opportunity to play truant in turn. Mrs Enderby gives dances, and looks quite disposed to lead off in person. Mrs Plumstead has grown quite giddy about sorting the letters, and her voice has not been heard further than three doors off since the arrival of the strangers. Dr Levitt is preaching his old sermons. Mrs Grey is well-nigh intoxicated with being the hostess of these ladies, and has even reached the point of allowing her drawing-room to be used every afternoon. Enderby is a fixture while they are so. Neither mother, sister, friend, nor frolic, ever detained him here before for a month together. He was going away in a fortnight when these ladies came: they have been here six weeks, and Enderby has dropped all mention of the external world. If you ask, as you are at this moment doing in your own heart, how I stand under this influence, I really cannot tell you. I avoid inquiring too closely. I enjoy every passing day too much to question it, and I let it go; and so must you.