“I cannot think what can induce mamma to visit him just now,” answered Susan: “he is such an oddity, I hear, and lives so very retired. Mary Morgan told me, (and Mary knows him well,) that he rarely goes into parties; and she laughed immoderately, when she said that the heavy little windows, and massy doors of the old mansion, always reminded her of a monastery; and, for her part, she thought it would be better to turn it into one, people it with monks, and make Mr. Wilmot superior of the order. I cannot tell you half that she said; but it was so droll, that we all laughed with her.” “I dare say you did,” replied Susan; “and I think it excessively provoking to be immured there, when the Drummonds, and the Williams’s, and the Grovenors are going to the seaside. It vexes me to think how Miss Drummond will boast, when she returns, of the company she has been introduced to, the new fashions she has seen, and how often her music and dancing were praised; whilst you and I must sit by, without having a word to say, or being able to relate any thing but the histories of the old rooks, that perched in the high trees close to the house, or——or——” But here they were interrupted by the entrance of their mother; and as they well knew that observations of this kind would be displeasing to her, they turned the conversation to some indifferent subject. Susan and Ann Spencer were the daughters of a military officer, whose delicate state of health had obliged his wife to accompany him abroad; leaving, with reluctance, her two little daughters to the care of their paternal grandmother. They were good-tempered, affectionate, and animated; but the mistaken fondness of the old lady, had not only indulged their weaknesses, and forbade any correction of their errors, but had introduced them into all her parties; so that their little heads were filled with the love of dress and visiting. The death of their father in India, and the return of their mother, after an absence of six years, suddenly put a stop to these injudicious plans; and Susan and Ann had been under their mother’s care about three months, when the preceding dialogue took place. Mrs. Spencer was a woman of too sincere piety, and too good an understanding, to allow her grief, deep as it was, for her departed husband, to interfere with her duties towards her children. She knew that the best test she could give of affection to his memory, was to render them worthy of his name, and, if possible, inheritors of his virtues. She loved them with the tenderest affection, but she was not blind to their faults; and whilst she strove to gain their confidence, she endeavoured, by gentle means, to counteract their foibles.