all the
men in the company took to ingratiate themselves with the other
daughters or the mother.

Among the men, there distinguished himself an elderly person, who
generally took the lead in the conversation, gave information to every
body, and decided all disputed or doubtful cases. Even the officer
treated him with submissive humility, and this friend of the family
addressed himself with kindness and condescension to all, asking them
questions, setting them right, animating them, and endeavouring, in his
way, to encourage or enlighten every one. He succeeded too at last in
drawing the embarrassed Alfred into the conversation, and his gratitude
vented itself in a glowing speech, which he now found an opportunity of
introducing, and in which he unfolded his wish for improvement, his
reverence for domestic happiness, and his hope that the genuine
religious temper and true piety would diffuse themselves throughout
Germany, with general approbation and to his own satisfaction.

The most attentive of all had been the fair Kunigunde, and she it was
who most loudly expressed her approbation. "How fortunate are we," she
at last concluded, "to assemble in our dear circle more and more of
those spirits, who aim at what is good and noble; who have a perception
of something above the earthly, and to whom the world, with all its
alluring treasures, appears but vanity. But it is the property of truth
and goodness to attract better natures, and to sublimate the weak.
While social intercourse has this happy effect in a larger sphere, it
is, in the confined domestic circle, the blissfulness of wedlock, that
kindles in the souls which it unites a still more fervent enthusiasm
for every thing divine, which here still more powerfully raises the
weaker spirit to the love of the infinite Being."

"Yes indeed," said a young man, who sat by the elderly gentleman, "this
is what I feel every day more intensely and thankfully." He sighed and
looked at the clouds, and the counsellor learnt upon inquiry, that this
was the husband of the lovely and pious Kunigunde.

The mother took up the theme and said, not without emotion, "How happy
I needs must feel, thus to have found in the circle of my children the
highest end of life, and to have enabled them also to attain the
noblest acquisition this earth can yield. How utterly unable I am to
take an interest in the pursuits of the generality of mankind! Nay, I
rather feel my pity moved by the vario