Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 3).pdf/120

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

( 112 )

jects; and their leisure, where they could elude the vigilance of Miss Matson, was devoted to clandestine coquetry, tittering whispers, and secret frolics.

"These," said Juliet, in a letter to Gabriella, "are now my destined associates! Ah, heaven! can these—can such as these,—setting aside pride, prejudice, propriety, or whatever word we use for the distinctions of society,—can these—can such as these, suffice as companions to her whose grateful heart has been honoured with the friendship of Gabriella? O hours of refined felicity past and gone, how severe is your contrast with those of heaviness and distaste now endured!"

The inexperience of Juliet in business, impeded not her acquiring almost immediate excellence in the millinery art, for which she was equally fitted by native taste, and by her remembrance of what she had seen abroad. The first time, therefore, that she was employed to