I saw that she paid ready money for every thing, and was very particular as to the quality of all her purchases for the house, while she was very indifferent as to those she made for her own dress. Mrs. Chloe bought two or three gowns for herself and Mrs. Philippa, showing a great deal of solicitude about the latter. She certainly tried her sister's patience to a considerable extent by her balancings between black lutestring and black paduasoy, chamois gloves and silk gloves, and I thought we should never get through. At last, in desperation, I ventured to suggest that, as Mrs. Thorpe had the best stock in town, we should go to her, knowing that she had the knack of making her customers know their own minds. † So we got Mrs. Chloe comfortably set down at her counter with Amabel to attend on her, and Mrs. Deborah and I went to finish her marketing, meaning to take her up again. † Or rather, I think, her own mind. She always made her customers buy what she pleased.—A. CAREY. I was pretty well supplied with money—thanks to the liberal way in which Uncle Andrew filled my purse—and I asked my aunt's permission to buy some tea and sugar for Hannah Tubbs, and some sugar-candy for the children at the schools. This led to an inquiry as to the school, and a proposal to visit it. Aunt Deborah was much edified by the intelligent way in which the elder girls read in the Bible, and she pleased herself and me by giving a guinea toward the expenses of the school. When we got back to Mrs. Thorpe's, we found Mrs. Chloe comfortably established in an arm-chair, discussing Mr. Thomson's poetry with Mr. Cheriton. Mrs. Thorpe had prepared a collation for us, which Mrs. Deborah was too kind-hearted to mortify her by refusing. Amabel and I were silent as in duty bound, but Mr. Cheriton was very sociable and pleasant with the elder ladies, sent a package of working materials to his mother and sister by Mrs. Deborah with his duty, and a pound of choice tobacco and snuff to the old rector. "Do you not take snuff yourself, Mr. Cheriton?" asked Mrs. Deborah. "No, madam. I was formerly a snuff-taker, but I have left it off of late, finding, as I think, better use for the money. But Mr. Bowring is an old man and an old friend, and I am glad to do him a little pleasure." "And I am pleased that I can help you to do so!" said Mrs. Deborah. "But how is this Mr. Cheriton? I heard you had turned Methodist and preached against all the pleasures of life." Mr. Cheriton smiled: "Perhaps if you looked into the matter, madam, you would find that the Methodists are not altogether so black as they are painted." "But I hope you do not mean to leave the church of England, or lead others away from it!" said Mrs. Chloe, in a tone of some alarm. "I do not think your father and mother would ever forgive you."