ome acquisitions which she would have liked.
Had she been an only daughter, she owns that she would have indulged a
little more in the garnish and decoration of life.

At her early age, the soundness of her judgment on persons and things
can not be derived from experience; she owes it to a _tact_ so fine as
enables her to seize on the strong feature, the prominent circumstance,
the leading point, instead of confusing her mind and dissipating her
attention, on the inferior parts of a character, a book, or a business.
This justness of thinking teaches her to rate things according to their
worth, and to arrange them according to their place. Her manner of
speaking adds to the effect of her words, and the tone of her voice
expresses with singular felicity, gayety or kindness, as her feelings
direct, and the occasion demands. This manner is so natural, and her
sentiments spring so spontaneously from the occasion, that it is obvious
that display is never in her head, nor an eagerness for praise in her
heart. I never heard her utter a word which I could have wished unsaid,
or a sentiment I could have wished unthought.

As to her dress, it reminds me of what Dr. Johnson once said to an
acquaintance of mine, of a lady who was celebrated for dressing well.
"The best evidence that I can give you of her perfection in this respect
is, that one can never remember what she had on." The dress of Lucilla
is not neglected, and it is not studied. She is as neat as the strictest
delicacy _demands_, and as fashionable as the strictest delicacy
_permits_; and her nymph-like form does not appear to less advantage for
being vailed with scrupulous modesty.

Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they could
guess with what a charm even the _appearance_ of modesty invests its
possessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from
principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice, the coquet
would adopt it as an allurement, the pure as her appropriate attraction,
and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.

What I admire in Miss Stanley, and what I have sometime regretted the
want of in some other women, is, that I am told she is so lively, so
playful, so desirous of amusing her father and mother when alone, that
they are seldom so gay as in their family party. It is then that her
talents are all unfolded, and that her liveliness is without restraint.
She was rather silent the t