This sketch, as the inspired author called it, having been read aloud and approved by acclamation, was delivered to the curate to copy; and as soon as this was completed, Mr. Cartwright received it from him, and holding it aloft in his right hand, pronounced aloud, in a very solemn and impressive manner, these words: "May this service, dedicated to the Lord, be found acceptable in his sight, and bring forth honour and glory to us and to him in the world to come and the life everlasting. Amen." This business happily completed, the religious amusements of the morning continued to go on as usual;--Mr. Bateman, the enamoured schoolmaster, constantly sitting, standing, and moving, with his eyes fixed on Miss Torrington; and the despairing Corbold, whose six passionate proposals had been six times formally refused by Helen, reposing himself on a sofa in deep meditation on the ways and means by which he might so wheedle or work himself into the secrets of his magnificent cousin as to make it necessary for him to wink at any means by which he could get Helen into his power, and so oblige her to marry him. At length the elegant banquet drew the company from their tracts and their talk to the dinner-parlour; and iced champagne refreshed the spirits of all, but particularly of those exhausted by the zealous warmth with which they had discussed the sinful adherence to good works so frightfully prevalent among the unregenerated clergy of the Church of England and Ireland. This was a theme upon which the majority of the company at the Cartwright Park meetings never wearied. At length, the final blessing was pronounced, the party separated, and the tired family left to repose themselves as they best liked till the hour of dinner. The increasing delicacy of Miss Cartwright's health, and Rosalind's drooping spirits, had prevented the intimacy between them from gaining ground so rapidly as they had, perhaps, both expected, when the families of the Park and Vicarage became blended into one. Yet it was evident that Rosalind was the only person to whom the pale Henrietta ever wished to speak, and equally so that Rosalind always listened to her with interest. They were mounting the stairs together after the company were dispersed, when Henrietta said, "Are you not wearied to death by all this, Miss Torrington? Oh, how you are changed since the time I told you that I had pleasure in looking at your face! It was then the brightest looking countenance I ever gazed upon: but now--to use the words of, I know not whom--all the sunshine is out of you." "It is a sorry compliment you pay me, my dear Henrietta; but I believe I am not quite the same sort of person I was then." Tears started in her eyes as she spoke.