t House before they have been to see
you?"

"I have not the smallest objection on that account," replied Anne. "I
should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so
well as Mrs and the Miss Musgroves."

"Oh! but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible. They ought
to feel what is due to you as my sister. However, we may as well go
and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over, we can
enjoy our walk."

Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent;
but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that,
though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither
family could now do without it. To the Great House accordingly they
went, to sit the full half hour in the old-fashioned square parlour,
with a small carpet and shining floor, to which the present daughters
of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion by a
grand piano-forte and a harp, flower-stands and little tables placed in
every direction. Oh! could the originals of the portraits against the
wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue
satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an
overthrow of all order and neatness! The portraits themselves seemed
to be staring in astonishment.

The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration,
perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English
style, and the young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove were a
very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated,
and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and
manners. There was a numerous family; but the only two grown up,
excepting Charles, were Henrietta and Louisa, young ladies of nineteen
and twenty, who had brought from school at Exeter all the usual stock
of accomplishments, and were now like thousands of other young ladies,
living to be fashionable, happy, and merry. Their dress had every
advantage, their faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely
good, their manner unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence
at home, and favourites abroad. Anne always contemplated them as some
of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance; but still, saved as we
all are, by some comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for
the possibility of exchange, she would not have given up her own more
elegant and cultivated mind for all their