This process of mind, from contempt to toleration, has been experienced by more disciplined minds than Clara's. No wonder that a young woman so unacquainted with human society should be led to sacrifice her better judgment to the plausibilities of so well-informed a person as Miss Henderson. Clara was far from perfection, though she was a most excellent and amiable creature, and was possessed of a tolerably sound judgment. She was accessible to flattery, and loved praise. It was not in her power or will to discriminate aright on that matter. Signora Rivolta had instructed and educated her daughter very much by the impulse of encouragement. That mode had produced many good effects, but it had its evils. Clara had become too susceptible of commendation, and her appetite was too strong to suffer her taste to be delicate. Thus there arose a kind of sentimental friendship between the two young ladies; in which intercourse of sentiment Miss Henderson had the advantage and the greatest power, not from superior strength of mind, or greater accuracy of discrimination, but because it had been her lot to enjoy a larger portion of experience or knowledge of human society. It might be imagined that a woman of such superior mind as Signora Rivolta, would have given to her only child, whose education she had by herself totally conducted, such information and such views of society and human nature, as to render her so well acquainted with life that she might not be a dupe of its ordinary deceptions. But this is not possible. Solitary education can never fit the mind for society; the social education must commence when the solitary has finished. Young people cannot understand the language of experience. Signora Rivolta might even have described with the utmost truth and philosophic accuracy the character of Miss Henderson, and might have given her child the strictest and most earnest injunctions to guard herself against its fascinations; and Clara might have been most attentive to the instruction, and desirous of obeying it, but when the character presented itself in real life she would not have recognised it. CHAPTER VIII. "Fair, gentle, sweet, Your wit makes wise things foolish." SHAKSPEARE.