and with persons of a different religion
and way of thinking to themselves. Their warning admonitions carried
their weight; that little Quaker bonnet which she took so much care of
was a talisman, drawing the most friendly of Friends away from the place
of her adoption. But she came back unchanged to her home, to her quiet
associations; she had lost none of her spirits, none, of her cheerful
interest in her natural surroundings. As life burnt on her kind soul
seemed to shine more and more brightly. Every one came to see her, to
be cheered and warmed by her genial spirit. She loved flowers, of which
her room was full. She had a sort of passion for prisms, says her
biographer; she had several set in a frame and mounted like a screen,
and the colour flew about the little room. She kept up a great
correspondence; she was never tired of writing, though the letters on
other people's business were apt to prove a serious burden at times.
But she lives on only to be of use. 'Take care of indulging in little
selfishnesses,' she writes in her diary; 'learn to consider others
in trifles: the mind so disciplined will find it easier to fulfil
the greater duties, and the character will not exhibit that trying
inconsistency which one sees in great and often in pious persons.' Her
health fails, but not her courage. She goes up to London for the last
time to her cousin's house. She is interested in all the people she
meets, in their wants and necessities, in the events of the time. She
returns home, contented with all; with the house which she feels so
'desirable to die in,' with her window through which she can view the
woods and rising ground of Thorpe. 'My prisms to-day are quite in their
glory,' she writes; 'the atmosphere must be very clear, for the radiance
is brighter than ever I saw it before;' and then she wonders whether the
mansions in heaven will be draped in such brightness; and so to the last
the gentle, bright, _rainbow_ lady remained surrounded by kind and
smiling faces, by pictures, by flowers, and with the light of her
favourite prismatic colours shining round about the couch on which she
lay.

_JANE AUSTEN._

1775-1817.

'A mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes
originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent pas de difference entre
les hommes.'--PASCAL.

'I did not know that you were a studier of character,' says Bingley to
Elizabeth. 'It must be an amusing study.'

'Yes,