Mrs. Tower had been more than usually agreeable, though she was always lovely; and as to Mr. Style, he had carried every heart. The girls had all been completely captivated; some by his calm and manly beauty, and some by the flashing brilliancy of his ripe and richly cultivated mind, and some by those inexpressible fascinations, which, had he been a man of the world, would have made him irresistible in all society. But Mr. Style was a man of pure and exalted piety, and would have conscientiously feared to use his slightest power to interest a heart to which his own must stoop from its own moral height to meet, or to whose affection he could not earnestly respond. Indeed so fastidious was the Rev. Mr. Style, that he had never met the lady, as he determined, whom he could cordially invite to the queenship of his affections. He was verily so happy and contented as an inmate of Mrs. Tower’s family in the pursuit of his daily duties—so happy in the satisfaction and regard of his people, that it seldom occurred to him that “it is not good for a man to be alone.” The mammas and blooming young ladies, however, adopted that doctrine as one of the most important, prominent and practical of the whole creed, and most especially did they set their faces against so Popish a practice as the “celibacy of the clergy!” Mrs. Tower had withdrawn from the circle a few minutes to examine the dispatches brought in by the evening mail, but returning soon with a smile of unusual gladness illuminating her pensive face, and an open letter in her hand, she said— “Well, girls, I have intelligence here that makes me very happy. I have at length prevailed with a young friend of mine, to leave the city and pass a few weeks with me during the hottest of the season, and I am so very glad—” “O, so am I,” interrupted Miss Charlotte Varley, a very languishing young lady, who had great hopes of success with Mr. Style, since she had joined his communion and was a teacher in his Sabbath-school—but withal a _belle_—“a young gentleman from the city will be very refreshing this terrible weather—I hope he is a pious man, Mrs. Tower—we have so few of those—and that he will bring us some new plans about Sabbath-schools and benevolent societies such as are found to be most useful in the city!” Miss Varley closed her remarks with a small sigh, and looked at Mr. Style for pious sympathy. Mr. Style that moment turned away to pluck a drooping blossom that hung near him, and some of the ruder minxes indulged in mischievous glances and a smothered laugh.