The routine of the household very much resembled that of Fair Manor, and of most Friends of that day. Immediately after breakfast, the whole household assembled, and Mr. Barrington read a chapter from the Bible. This over, the carriage appeared at the door, which drove the father and son to business. Dinner was on the table at two o’clock, for the city Friends had not yet fallen into the fashionable evening hours for that meal, even the fashionable hour being rarely later than five o’clock. The gentlemen dined in town, and returned to tea at six. During the day the ladies amused themselves for some hours with their needlework and talk, or took Millicent for a drive, to call on some other Friends, or made a shopping visit to the city. After tea, Mr. Edmund would propose a ride, in which Millicent and one or more—perhaps all—of his sisters would accompany him. They were extremely kind to Millicent, and she soon found herself a marked object of attention. Her peculiar style of beauty—that fair complexion, and those clear blue eyes, in combination with those long dark eyelashes, those finely-arched and jetty eyebrows, and rich raven hair,—that oriental _tout ensemble_ was extremely piquant, even to the sober young men of the Society. Then it was whispered that she was a very wealthy heiress, which by no means detracted from her charms; and the quiet grace and modesty of her manners were in themselves, unknown to her, as _distingué_ as if she had been Lady Millicent, instead of simple Millicent, the Friends’ Child, as Elizabeth Drury was fond of calling her. By degrees it dawned on Millicent that there was a side to the Friends’ life in London, at least amongst the opulent, of which she had not dreamed. The Misses Barrington, in their conversations in their own room, launched into topics which at first startled Millicent. They asked her if she had ever been at the theatres, the opera, or at morning and evening concerts? With unfeigned surprise, she replied, “Oh, certainly not! Surely no Friends went to such places!” A pleasant smile passed over the faces of the young ladies: and one of them said to Millicent, patting her gently on the shoulder, “Oh, dear Simplicity! don’t thou think we all do nothing but attend meetings and study prison discipline!” They informed her that they frequently went to all these places of amusement. “But,” said Millicent, “it is against the rules of the Society. What do your parents say? How do you answer the Queries?” (Certain queries put to and answered by each particular and monthly meeting, regarding the maintenance of the principles and practices of the Society.) “My dear child,” said the young Friends, “we leave the meetings to settle all that. They don’t know, in fact,—though perhaps they guess a little,—half of what we do: why should they? We don’t want to break any moral law, but we cannot live like nuns in a convent when all the London stream of rational enjoyments is flowing around us.”