e how far she might venture, and changed the
discourse when the look was not encouraging. She never tired him with
lectures, never obtruded serious discourse unseasonably, nor prolonged
it improperly. His early love of reading, which had for some years given
way to more turbulent pleasures, he has resumed; and frequently
insists, that the books he reads to her shall be of her own choosing. In
this choice she exercises the nicest discretion, selecting such as may
gently lead his mind to higher pursuits, but which at the same time are
so elegantly written as not to disgust his taste. In all this Mrs.
Stanley is her friend and counselor.

"While Mrs. Carlton is advancing her husband's relish for books of
piety, he is forming hers to polite literature. She herself often
proposes an amusing book, that he may not suspect her of a wish to
abridge his innocent gratifications; and by this complaisance she gains
more than she loses, for, not to be outdone in generosity, he often
proposes some pious one in return. Thus their mutual sacrifices are
mutual benefits. She has found out that he has a highly cultivated
understanding, and he has discovered that she has a mind remarkably
susceptible of cultivation. He has by degrees dropped most of his former
associates, and has entirely renounced the diversions into which they
led him. He is become a frequent and welcome visitor here. His conduct
is uniformly respectable, and I look forward with hope to his becoming
even a shining character. There is, however, a pertinacity, I may say a
sincerity, in his temper, which somewhat keeps him back. He will never
adopt any principle without the most complete conviction of his own
mind; nor profess any truth of which he himself does not actually feel
the force."

Lady Belfield, after thanking Mr. Stanley for his interesting little
narrative, earnestly requested that Sir John would renew his
acquaintance with Mr. Carlton, that she herself might be enabled to
profit by such an affecting example of the power of genuine religion as
his wife exhibited; confessing that one such living instance would weigh
more with her than a hundred arguments. Mrs. Stanley obligingly promised
to invite them to dinner the first leisure day. Mr. Stanley now
informed us that Sir George Aston was arrived from Cambridge on a visit
to his mother and sisters; that he was a youth of great promise whom he
begged to introduce to us as a young man in whose welfare he took a
li