have sometimes met with such changes."

"I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you are at. You
are quizzing me and Miss Anderson."

"No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what you mean. I am
quite in the dark. But I _will_ quiz you with a great deal of pleasure,
if you will tell me what about."

"Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite so far imposed
on. You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing an
altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly
so. The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them the other
day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson.
The circumstance was precisely as this lady has represented it. When
Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his
sister was not _out_, and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat
there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with only her and a
little girl or two in the room, the governess being sick or run away,
and the mother in and out every moment with letters of business, and I
could hardly get a word or a look from the young lady--nothing like a
civil answer--she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an
air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then _out_. I
met her at Mrs. Holford's, and did not recollect her. She came up to me,
claimed me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance; and talked
and laughed till I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must
be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has
heard the story."

"And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I dare say,
than does credit to Miss Anderson. It is too common a fault. Mothers
certainly have not yet got quite the right way of managing their
daughters. I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set
people right, but I do see that they are often wrong."

"Those who are showing the world what female manners _should_ be," said
Mr. Bertram gallantly, "are doing a great deal to set them right."

"The error is plain enough," said the less courteous Edmund; "such girls
are ill brought up. They are given wrong notions from the beginning.
They are always acting upon motives of vanity, and there is no more
real modesty in their behaviour _before_ they appear in public than
afterwards."

"I do not know," replied Miss Crawford hesitatingly. "Yes, I cannot
agree with you ther