then encouraged her by an affectionate
smile, but listened like a man who has not quite made up his mind, yet
thinks the subject too important to be dismissed without a fair and
candid hearing.

CHAPTER XXV.

While we were at breakfast the next morning, a sweet little gay girl
flew into the room almost breathless with joy, and running to her
mother, presented her with a beautiful nosegay.

"O, I see you were the industrious girl last week, Kate," said Mrs.
Stanley, embracing her, and admiring the flowers. Lady Belfield looked
inquisitively. "It is an invention of Lucilla's," said the mother, "that
the little one who performs best in the school-room, instead of having
any reward which may excite vanity or sensuality, shall be taught to
gratify a better feeling, by being allowed to present her mother with a
nosegay of the finest flowers, which it is reward enough to see worn at
dinner, to which she is always admitted when there is no company."

"Oh pray do not consider us as company; pray let Kate dine with us
to-day," said Lady Belfield. Mrs. Stanley bowed her assent and went on.
"But this is not all. The flowers they present, they also raise. I went
rather too far, when I said that no vanity was excited; they are vain
enough of their carnations, and each is eager to produce the largest. In
this competition, however, the vanity is not personal. Lucilla has some
skill in raising flowers: each girl has a subordinate post under her.
Their father often treats them with half a day's work, and then they all
treat me with tea and cakes in the honey-suckle arbor of their own
planting, which is called Lucilla's bower. It would be hard to say
whether parents or children most enjoy these happy holidays."

At dinner Mrs. Stanley appeared with her nosegay in a large knot of
ribbons, which was eyed with no small complacency by little Kate. I
observed that Lucilla, who used to manifest much pleasure in the
conversation after dinner, was beckoned out of the room by Ph[oe]be, as
soon as it was over. I felt uneasy at an absence to which I had not been
accustomed; but the cause was explained, when, at six o'clock, Kate, who
was the queen of the day, was sent to invite us to drink tea in
Lucilla's bower: we instantly obeyed the summons.

"I knew nothing of this," said the delighted mother, while we were all
admiring the elegant arrangements of this little fete. The purple
clematis, twisting its flexile branches with those of t