nd minute powers of observation and no small insight
into character. The rooms, the pictures, the plate and china, all are
described, and she ends by saying:

I suppose you will expect a comparison of the two families. The
gentlemen are far superior at A----; and though B---- is more
fascinating, and makes one feel for her as if one could do
anything, yet A---- seems to me to be superior to her in strength of
mind and also in acquirements. Lady C. is much younger than Lady
D., much more in awe of her mother, and being plain, has not the
appearance of being used to the homage of all around her like Lady
D. So ends my long story of a short but pleasant time, and if it
has tired your patience, at least you cannot complain of my not
having given you a full account.

Looking over these letters, taken back into the past by the yellow
paper, the faded ink, the old-fashioned writing, all angular and
sloping, letters fresh and vivid with youth, intelligence, and goodness,
one cannot but wonder if those written by a girl of seventeen, in these
days of high pressure, will be such pleasant reading forty years hence.

Bessie was greatly interested in these visits, and she writes to Mary at
Culham: "Mamma saw some beautiful miniatures of the Pretender, the
Cardinal York and their sister the Princess Louisa. They were very
small, and set in turquoises and diamonds. I believe that princess
married the King of Sardinia."

The Rev. T. Lowe, Vicar of Willingdon, who left Chichester thirty-five
years ago, says that he often met Bessie at the palace and in general
society at Chichester; that he made use of every opportunity he had to
cultivate her acquaintance. She liked to talk of music, and he
"remembers well the sweet expression of her mobile features, declaring
the peace and resignation that dwelt within. These, no doubt, made her
so alive to all pleasures within her reach. It was a touching sight to
see her joining, with evident enjoyment, in a quadrille at an evening
party at home or elsewhere."

Mr. Lowe saw her occasionally after he left Chichester. She was
interested in some blind persons in his parish. One she rescued from
"the uncongenial life of the workhouse;" another acted as an agent for
her society; and she was specially interested in a third, both blind and
deaf, now dead. "Her sympathy with these sufferers was full of comfort
to them; and as to them, so to all to w