wo or three first days after my arrival, yet
it was evidently not the silence of reserve or inattention, but of
delicate propriety. Her gentle frankness and undesigning temper
gradually got the better of this little shyness, and she soon began to
treat me as the son of her father's friend. I very early found, that
though a stranger might behold her without admiration, it was impossible
to converse with her with indifference. Before I had been a week at the
Grove, my precautions vanished, my panoply was gone, and yet I had not
consulted Mr. Stanley.

In contemplating the captivating figure, and the delicate mind of this
charming girl, I felt that imagination, which misleads so many youthful
hearts, had preserved mine. The image my fancy had framed, and which had
been suggested by Milton's heroine, had been refined indeed, but it had
not been romantic. I had early formed an ideal standard in my mind; too
high, perhaps; but its very elevation had rescued me from the common
dangers attending the society of the sex. I was continually comparing
the women with whom I conversed, with the fair conception which filled
my mind. The comparison might be unfair to them; I am sure it was not
unfavorable to myself, for it preserved me from the fascination of mere
personal beauty, the allurements of fictitious character, and the
attractions of ordinary merit.

I am aware that love is apt to throw a radiance around the being it
prefers, till it becomes dazzled, less perhaps with the brightness of
the object itself, than with the beams with which imagination has
invested it. But religion, though it had not subdued my imagination, had
chastised it. It had sobered the splendors of fancy, without obscuring
them. It had not extinguished the passions, but it had taught me to
regulate them.----I now seemed to have found the being of whom I had
been in search. My mind felt her excellences, my heart acknowledged its
conqueror. I struggled, however, not to abandon myself to its impulses.
I endeavored to keep my own feelings in order, till I had time to
appreciate a character which appeared as artless as it was correct. And
I did not allow myself to make this slight sketch of Lucilla, and of the
effect she produced on my heart, till more intimate acquaintance had
justified my prepossessions.

But let me not forget that Mr. Stanley had another daughter. If
Lucilla's character is more elevated, Ph[oe]be's is not less amiable.
Her face is equally h