Miss Cartwright laid aside her book and resumed her netting as soon as she saw him approach; but as usual, she sat silent and abstracted, and the conversation was wholly carried on by the vicar and his pretty proselyte. No man, perhaps, had a greater facility in making conversation than the Vicar of Wrexhill: his habit of extempore preaching, in which he was thought by many to excel, probably contributed to give him this power. But not only had he an endless flow of words wherewith to clothe whatever thoughts suggested themselves, but moreover a most happy faculty of turning every thing around him to account. Every object, animate or inanimate, furnished him a theme; and let him begin from what point he would, (unless in the presence of noble or influential personages to whom he believed it would be distasteful,) he never failed to bring the conversation round to the subject of regeneration and grace, the blessed hopes of himself and his sect, and the assured damnation of all the rest of the world. Fanny Mowbray listened to him with an earnestness that amounted to nervous anxiety, lest she should lose a word. His awful dogmas had taken fearful hold of her ardent and ill-regulated imagination; while his bland and affectionate manner, his fine features and graceful person, rendered him altogether an object of the most unbounded admiration and interest to her. As an additional proof, probably, that he did not shrink from persecution, Mr. Cartwright again opened the piano-forte as soon as the tea equipage was removed, and asked Fanny if she would sing with him. "With you, Mr. Cartwright!" she exclaimed in an accent of glad surprise: "I did not know that you sang. Oh! how I wish that I were a greater proficient, that I might sing with you as I would wish to do!" "Sing with me, my dear child, with that sweet and pious feeling which I rejoice to see hourly increasing in your heart. Sing thus, my dearest child, and you will need no greater skill than Heaven is sure to give to all who raise their voice to it. This little book, my dear Miss Fanny," he continued, drawing once more the manuscript volume from his pocket, "contains much that your pure and innocent heart will approve. Do you know this air?" and he pointed to the notes of "Là ci darem' la mano." "Oh yes!" said Fanny; "I know it very well." "Then play it, my good child. This too we have taken as spoil from the enemy, and instead of profane Italian words, you will here find in your own language thoughts that may be spoken without fear." Fanny instantly complied; and though her power of singing was greatly inferior to that of Rosalind, the performance, aided by the fine bass voice of Mr. Cartwright, and an accompaniment very correctly played, was very agreeable. Fanny herself thought she had never sung so well before, and required only to be told by the vicar what she was to do next, to prolong the performance till considerably past Mr. Cartwright's usual hour of retiring.