"She loves _you_, as I have said, and she looks upon the coming union with you as the fulfilment of a sacred engagement, and a duty she has to perform; but with this she views the rank you hold in society, and in which she will be associated, only imposing on herself obligations of a higher and severer order, and calling for a stricter conduct and a greater self-denial on her part. She condemns what she calls the dissipations and wicked employment of time, in the world of fashion; she holds dress, beyond the plainest attire, to be a misapplication of the gifts of fortune; she laments over the worldly career of any one whom she hears talked of with applause, or whose talents raise them to distinction in the public eye: she has even, I understand, wholly abandoned her music and her drawing, as too alluring and dangerous an occupation, wasting the time which ought to be devoted to serious reading, and an acquirement of that spirit which has already cast such a gloom over her existence. The only active employment in which she indulges herself beyond her books, is in making clothes for and visiting the poor in her mother's domain. In short, she is what the world calls a methodist, a saint; I know not exactly what these words mean, but I know they are terms applied by people of sense to an ultraism in religious matters." Lord Albert shuddered, and a sigh was the only interruption he gave, as Lady Hamlet proceeded. "Conceive yourself, my dear Lord Albert, united to a person of this character, however amiable in herself, with your talents, with your views, which are" (and she looked at him steadily as she spoke) "tinctured with ambition. With your temper and your tastes for the elegancies of life, how would you brook a wife who was praying and singing psalms all day long? who would consider all _your_ actions, when not in accordance with her own, as so many positive sins, and whose moments, such at least as were spared from the offices of her enthusiasm, would be passed in the cottages of your tenants, and in making baby-linen for every expected increase in their families.