might extirpate the evil from whence the fault sprung;
so that the individual error and the individual correction were
continually recurring.

As Mrs. Ranby, I had observed, seldom quoted any sacred writer but St.
Paul, I remarked that Lady Belfield admired almost exclusively
Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the historical books of the Bible. Of the
Epistles, that of St. James was her favorite; the others she thought
chiefly, if not entirely, applicable to the circumstances of the Jews
and Pagans, to the converts from among whom they were addressed. If she
entertained rather an awful reverence for the doctrinal parts, than an
earnest wish to study them, it arose from the common mistake of
believing that they were purely speculative, without being aware of
their deep practical importance. But if these two ladies were
diametrically opposite to each other in certain points, both were
frequently right in what they assumed, and both wrong only in what they
rejected. Each contended for one half of that which will not save when
disjointed from the other, but which when united to it, makes up the
complete Christian character.

Lady Belfield, who was, if I may so speak, constitutionally charitable,
almost thought that heaven might be purchased by charity. She inverted
the valuable superstructure of good works, and laid them as her
foundation; and while Mrs. Ranby would not, perhaps, much have blamed
Moses for breaking the tables of the law, had he only demolished the
second, Lady Belfield would have saved the second, as the more important
of the two.

Lady Belfield had less vanity than any woman I ever knew who was not
governed by a very strict religious principle. Her modesty never courted
the admiration of the world, but her timidity too much dreaded its
censure. She would not do a wrong thing to obtain any applause, but she
omitted some right ones from the dread of blame.

CHAPTER VIII.

The house of Sir John Belfield was become a pleasant kind of home to me.
He and his lady seldom went out in an evening. Happy in each other and
in their children, though they lived much with the rational, they
associated as little as they thought possible with the racketing world.
Yet being known to be generally at home, they were exposed to the
inroads of certain invaders, called fine ladies, who, always afraid of
being too early for their parties, are constantly on the watch how to
disburden themselves for the intermediate hour, o