know how to use it. The few domestic cares that she perceived to be her duty were gone through as weary tasks, and her mind continued involved in her own romantic world, where she was oblivious of all that was troublesome or vexatious. Now and then she was aware of a sluggish dulness that seemed to be creeping over her higher aspirations--a want of glow and feeling on religious subjects, even in the most sacred moments; and she wondered and grieved at a condition, such as she had never experienced in what she had thought far more untoward circumstances. She did not see the difference between doing her best when her will was thwarted, and her present life of neglect and indulgence. Nothing roused her; she did not perceive omissions that would have fretted women of housewifely instincts, and her soft dignity and smooth temper felt few annoyances; and though James could sometimes be petulant, he was always withheld from reproving her both by his enthusiastic fondness, and his sense that for him she had quitted her natural station of ease and prosperity. On a dark hazy November afternoon, when the boys had been unusually obtuse and mischievous, and James, worn-out, wearied, and uncertain whether his cuts had alighted on the most guilty heads, strode home with his arm full of Latin exercises, launched them into the study, and was running up to the drawing-room, when he almost fell over Charlotte, who was scouring the stairs. She gave a little start and scream, and stood up to let him pass. He was about to rebuke her for doing such work at such an hour; but he saw her flushed, panting, and evidently very tired, and his wrath was averted. Hurrying on to the drawing-room, he found Isabel eagerly writing. She looked up with a pretty smile of greeting; but he only ran his hand through his already disordered hair, and exclaimed-- 'Our stairs are like the Captain of Knockdunder's. You never know they are cleaned, except by tumbling over the bucket and the maid.' 'Are they being done?' said Isabel, quietly. 'I suppose the maids were busy this morning.' 'And Charlotte, too! She looks half dead. I thought Ellen was to do such work, and ought to have done it in proper time.' 'Little Catharine is so fretful, that Ellen cannot be spared from the nursery.' 'I suppose she might be, if you were not absorbed in that writing.' 'I had the children with me, while the servants were at dinner; but Kitty was so troublesome, that I could not keep her. I am particularly anxious to finish this.' 'Some people would think a sick child more engrossing than that--' He had very nearly said trash, but he broke off short. 'There is nothing really the matter with her,' began Isabel, composedly; but James did not wait to listen, and muttering, 'That girl will be killed if she goes on,' he ran up to the nursery, whence he already heard a sound of low fretting.