Lady Cecilia, who had now joined the party, was a little in pain when she heard Louis the Fourteenth’s love for punctuality alluded to. She dreaded, when the general quoted “Punctuality is the virtue of princes,” that Mr. Harley, with the usual impatience of genius, would have ridiculed so antiquated a notion; but, to Lady Cecilia’s surprise, he even took the part of punctuality: in a very edifying manner he distinguished it from mere ceremonial etiquette--the ceremonial of the German courts, where “they lose time at breakfast, at dinner, at supper; at court, in the antechamber, on the stairs, everywhere:”--punctuality was, he thought, a habit worthy to be ranked with the virtues, by its effects upon the mind, the power it demands and gives of self-control, raising in us a daily, hourly sense of duty, of something that ought, that must be done, one of the best habits human creatures can have, either for their own sake or the sake of those with whom they live. And to kings and courtiers more particularly, because it gives the idea of stability--of duration; and to the aged, because it gives a sort of belief that life will last for ever. The general had often thought this, but said he had never heard it so well expressed; he afterwards acknowledged to Cecilia that he found Mr. Harley was quite a different person from what he had expected--“He has good sense, as well as genius and good breeding. I am glad, my dear Cecilia, that you asked him here.” This was a great triumph. Towards the close of the evening, when mortals are beginning to think of bed-chamber candles, Lady Cecilia looked at the _ecarté_ table, and said to her mother, “How happy they are, and how comfortable we are! A card-table is really a necessary of life--not even music is more universally useful.” Mr. Harley said, “I doubt,” and then arose between Lady Davenant and him an argument upon the comparative power in modern society of music and cards. Mr. Harley took the side of music, but Lady Davenant inclined to think that cards, in their day, and their day is not over yet, have had a wider range of influence. “Nothing like that happy board of green cloth; it brings all intellects to one level,” she said. Mr. Harley pleaded the cause of music, which, he said, hushes all passions, calms even despair. Lady Davenant urged the silent superiority of cards, which rests the weary talker, and relieves the perplexed courtier, and, in support of her opinion, she mentioned an old ingenious essay on cards and tea, by Pinto, she thought; and she begged that Helen would some time look for it in the library. Helen went that instant. She searched, but could not find; where it ought to have been, there it of course was not. While she was still on the book-ladder, the door opened, and enter Lady Bearcroft.