This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

with my arguments. I think she has a superior mind, but it has always been cramped up in a nut shell. Her mother would not like to have her associate with me if it were not for our grave conversation. She has no fear of my influence over her, and indulges great hopes that her's over me may be an instrument for my salvation, for with all her crossness she thinks the world of Priscilla, and well she may."

"My dear daughter, I am afraid you judge Mrs. Greenwood too harshly. Nature has not endowed her with the soft, musical voice of your mother, or that genial temperament which carries smiles and content wherever it goes. Besides, her plans for life were thwarted in her youth, and she seems to have borne the cross ever since without anticipating a crown, and seems conscientiously bent in training her daughter just so."

"Did you know her when she was young?"

"Oh yes. She was one of the gayest girls that ever tripped the floor at the fashionable balls in the city, though without her parents' knowledge. They lived in the country a few miles distant, and were strict Calvinists. A young man of respectable connexions, and for ought I know, of respectable character, sought and secured her love. The bitter opposition of her parents, on account of his different religious views, wrought so upon her fears and conscientiousness, that she broke the engagement, and soon after joining the church, became a scrupulous observer of its rituals; but it was evident to all who had previously known her, that it was not a willing