y expressed;--he won the prize. Howard's taste led him to a
country life. He was not rich enough to become a gentleman farmer; he
therefore became a working one. For years, he did not visit his brother;
but at length the wound was entirely healed by another of the fair
creatures whom Heaven has destined to become the happiness or misery of
man. Still the theory of contrast was carried through; his second love
was unlike his first; she was full of gayety and life, and gave to his
mind an active impulse, which it often wanted. Frances, in the midst of
society, drew her most congenial pleasures from books. Charlotte, the
wife of Howard, though in comparative solitude, drew her enjoyment from
society. There was not a family in the village near, that did not, in
some way or other, promote her happiness. Her information was gathered
from intercourse with living beings--her knowledge from real life. If
the two sisters had changed situations, the one might have become a mere
bookworm; the other, from the liveliness of her disposition, and the warm
interest she took in characters, a little of a gossip. As it was, they
both admirably filled their sphere in life, and influenced and were
influenced by the characters of their partners.

"Why did you not persuade Charlotte to come with you?" said Mrs. Draper.
"Sisters ought to be better acquainted than we are."

"I invited her," said Howard, "but she laughed at my proposing that a
farmer and his wife should leave the country at the same time. I have
brought, however, a proposal from her, that you should transport yourself
and children back with me; we have room enough in our barn-like house for
any of your attendants that you wish to bring."

For a moment Mrs. Draper seemed disposed to accept the invitation; but
she immediately added,--"I do not like to take my children from their
schools."

"That is just the answer Charlotte anticipated, and she desired me to
combat it with all my book-learning opposed to yours, and now and then
fill up the interstices with such plain matter-of-fact argument as she
could offer; for instance, that they would improve more in one month
passed in the country, at this fine season, than in a whole summer at
school. 'Tell her,' said she, 'to let them

'Leave their books and come away,
That boys and girls may join in play.'"

"I really think, Frances," said Mr. Draper, "this would be an excellent
plan; you are not quite well, and the