in love—whether he proposed for her to Sir Edward, or whether he spoke first to Isabella herself; and then, as she was dying that Fanny should wonder how he could have been insensible to her attractions, she began to wonder how it was, that he should have preferred Miss St. Clair to Fanny; that, for her part, she did not admire such tall people, nor did she admire such very long ringlets. She was little herself, and her hair was exceedingly _crêpé_. There is an end to all things: at length the wine and water came, and every one retired to rest, and Fanny found herself alone in her own room, and she sat down to indulge in all the luxury of grief. Yes, there is “a joy in grief:”—she revelled in letting her tears flow, and her sobs succeeded one another without interruption, till, exhausted and spent with weeping, she fell asleep the moment she laid her head on the pillow, and never woke till morning. She was not a person whose eyes betrayed that she had been weeping; and she went down to breakfast, with no outward traces of all she had suffered, but inwardly feeling guilty in having allowed herself to shed such bitter tears for the husband of another. They were, however, to be the last. She saw that her mother read her heart, and was grieved, and she would not throw a gloom over the declining years of the parent she adored, and whose health, always delicate, had of late become more so. She stifled all vain repinings; she was cheerful, and full of occupation. Her hand did shake when she opened her first letter from Lady Delaford, and her heart sickened when she saw her signature for the first time; and it took a long time to write her first answer, and, perhaps, when finished, it was somewhat measured and cold: but all such letters are more or less constrained, and Fanny was not _demonstrative_, and it all passed off very well. Lord and Lady Delaford went abroad soon after their marriage, and she was not put to the trial of a meeting. CHAPTER IV. Surtout les femmes nourries dans la mollesse, l’abondance et l’oisiveté, sont indolentes et dédaigneuses pour tout ce détail. Elles ne font pas grande différence entre la vie champêtre et celle des sauvages de Canada: si vous leur parlez de bled, de cultures de terres, de différentes natures de revenus, de la levée de rentes, et des autres droits seigneuriaux, de la meilleure manière de faire des fermes ou d’établir des receveurs, elles croyent que vous voulez les réduire à des occupations indignes d’elles. Ce n’est pourtant que par ignorance qu’on méprise cette science de l’économie.—FENELON.