haracter. For your own sake,
then, try and confide in my judgment."

"I ought to confide in your judgment, aunt, I know; but I cannot see
as you do in this particular instance."

"Then you ought rather to suspect the correctness of your own
observation, when it leads to conclusions so utterly opposed to
mine."

To this Margaretta did not reply. It seemed too much like giving up
her own rationality to assent to it, and she did not wish to pain
her aunt by objections.

On the next evening, a quiet, intelligent, and modest-looking young
man called in, and spent an hour or two with Margaretta and her
aunt. He did not present so imposing and showy an exterior as did
Mr. Smith, but his conversation had in it far more substance and
real common sense. After he had retired, Margaretta said--

"Well, it is no use; I cannot take any pleasure in the society of
Thomas Fielding."

"Why not, my dear?" asked the aunt.

"Oh, I don't know; but he is so dull and prosy."

"I am sure he don't seem dull to me, Margaretta. He doesn't talk a
great deal, it is true; but, then, what he does say is characterized
by good sense, and evinces a discriminating mind."

"But don't you think, aunt, that my money has some influence in
bringing him here?" And Margaretta looked up archly into her aunt's
face.

"It may have, for aught I can tell. We cannot see the motives of any
one. But I should be inclined to think that money would have little
influence with Thomas Fielding, were not every thing else in
agreement. He is, I think, a man of fixed and genuine principles."

"No doubt, aunt. But, still, I can't relish his society. And if I
can't, I can't."

"Very true. If you can't enjoy his company, why you can't. But it
cannot be, certainly, from any want, on his part, of gentlemanly
manners, or kind attentions to you."

"No; but, then, he is so dull. I should die if I had no other
company."

"Indeed, my child," Aunt Riston said, in a serious tone, "you ought
to make the effort to esteem and relish the society of those who
have evidently some stability of character, and whose conversation
has in it the evidence of mature observation, combined with sound
and virtuous principles, more than you do the flippant nonsense of
mere ladies' men, or selfish, unprincipled fortune-hunters."

"Indeed, aunt, you are too severe on my favourites!" And Margaretta
laughed gaily.

But to her aunt there was something sad in the sound of that laugh.
It see