nd
appearance; but who was humble, frugal, meek, and pious. Miss
Bragwell now strongly felt the truth of what Mr. Wilson had once
told her, that a woman may make an excellent partner for a dance who
would make a very bad companion for life.

Hitherto Mr. Bragwell and his daughters had only learned to regret
their folly and vanity, as it had produced them mortification in
this life; whether they were ever brought to a more serious sense of
their errors may be seen in a future part of this history.

PART VI.

GOOD RESOLUTIONS.

Mr. Bragwell was so much afflicted at the disgraceful marriage of
his daughter, who ran off with Timothy Incle, the strolling player,
that he never fully recovered his spirits. His cheerfulness, which
had arisen from a high opinion of himself, had been confirmed by a
constant flow of uninterrupted success; and that is a sort of
cheerfulness which is very liable to be impaired, because it lies at
the mercy of every accident and cross event in life. But though his
pride was now disappointed, his misfortunes had not taught him any
humility, because he had not discovered that they were caused by his
own fault; nor had he acquired any patience or submission, because
he had not learned that all afflictions come from the hand of God,
to awaken us to a deep sense of our sins, and to draw off our
hearts from the perishing vanities of this life. Besides, Mr.
Bragwell was one of those people who, if they would be thought to
bear with tolerable submission such trials as appear to be sent more
immediately from Providence, yet think they have a sort of right to
rebel at every misfortune which befalls them through the fault of a
fellow-creature; as if our fellow-creatures were not the agents and
instruments by which Providence often sees fit to try or to punish
us.

In answer to his heavy complaints, Mr. Worthy wrote him a letter in
which he expatiated on the injustice of our impatience, and on the
folly of our vindicating ourselves from guilt in the distinctions we
make between those trials which seem to come more immediately from
God, and those which proceed directly from the faults of our
fellow-creatures. "Sickness, losses, and death, we think," continued
he, "we dare not openly rebel against; while we fancy we are quite
justified in giving loose to our violence when we suffer by the hand
of the oppressor, the unkindness of the friend, or the disobedience
of the child. But this is one of the delusio