To prosecute our search, we must assume the power of looking more closely into the heart of Flora than she has ever looked herself, and to trace her actions to their source, as she never has dreamed of tracing them. Flora was the beloved and only child of a devoted Christian. From her birth she had been the subject of many prayers, and religion had been instilled into her mind from the time when she could first lisp the name of the Saviour. Great had been the delight of her tender mother to see the first dawnings of religious perception in the mind of her child. Great was her pride, if one so meek could be proud, to mark the pleasure taken by Flora in her Bible; who can wonder if she did not closely analyze whether that pleasure arose from a desire to win her smile, or simple love of the truth! Flora was gifted by nature with a sweet and easy temper, and in the secluded life which she led there was seldom anything to ruffle it. She had also a warm affectionate heart, and as its tenderness was lavished upon her mother, duties toward her were regarded as delights--Flora pleased herself in pleasing her parent. One of the strongest features in Flora’s character was the love of approbation; and carefully guarded as she ever had been from any influence that could injure her, this passion, often so dangerous, so fatal, ever wore the semblance of virtue. It was so charming to be loved and admired; to be praised by the clergyman, looked up to by the poor, considered as a model of piety and charity! Flora was little aware that, in her life of seclusion, love of variety, necessity for occupation, desire to find some object of interest, might suffice to lead her to the dwellings of the poor, without any higher motive. She would have been startled to have been told how much of vanity mingled with her benevolent zeal. She had a floating idea, just in itself, but injurious in its effect on her mind, that woman never looks so heavenly fair as when engaged in offices of mercy; she had a consciousness that her own delicate loveliness never showed to greater advantage than when contrasted with squalid poverty and sickly age; and when others compared her to a seraph or a sunbeam, the words which brought the soft colour to her cheek and the modest disclaimer to her lips, were by no means distasteful to her heart, nor were they altogether condemned by her secret judgment.