f away on a beggar, while she had a daughter
single, who might yet raise her family by a great match. I am sorry
to say that Mrs. Bragwell's anger was not owing to the undutifulness
of the daughter, or the worthlessness of the husband; poverty was
in her eyes the grand crime. The doctrine of forgiveness, as a
religious principle, made no more a part of Mr. Bragwell's system
than of his wife's; but in natural feeling, particularly for this
offending daughter, he much exceeded her.

In a few months the youngest Miss Bragwell desired leave to return
home from Mr. Worthy's. She had, indeed, only consented to go
thither as a less evil of the two, than staying in her father's
house after her sister's elopement. But the sobriety and simplicity
of Mr. Worthy's family were irksome to her. Habits of vanity and
idleness were become so rooted in her mind, that any degree of
restraint was a burden; and though she was outwardly civil, it was
easy to see that she longed to get away. She resolved, however, to
profit by her sister's faults; and made her parents easy by assuring
them she would never throw herself away on a _man who was worth
nothing_. Encouraged by these promises, which her parents thought
included the whole sum and substance of human wisdom, and which was
all, they said, they could in reason expect, her father allowed her
to come home.

Mr. Worthy, who accompanied her, found Mr. Bragwell gloomy and
dejected. As his house was no longer a scene of vanity and
festivity, Mr. Bragwell tried to make himself and his friend believe
that he was grown religious; whereas he was only become
discontented. As he had always fancied that piety was a melancholy,
gloomy thing, and as he felt his own mind really gloomy, he was
willing to think that he was growing pious. He had, indeed, gone
more constantly to church, and had taken less pleasure in feasting
and cards, and now and then read a chapter in the Bible; but all
this was because his spirits were low, and not because his heart was
changed. The outward actions were more regular, but the inward man
was the same. The forms of religion were resorted to as a painful
duty; but this only added to his misery, while he was utterly
ignorant of its spirit and power. He still, however, reserved
religion as a loathsome medicine, to which he feared he must have
recourse at last, and of which he even now considered every
abstinence from pleasure, or every exercise of piety as a bitter
dose. H