OLD THINGS AND NEW THINGS.

I AM a member of a very large family; my father was a country gentleman of the old school, and having more than his share of daughters, he was content to marry them, in many instances, somewhat beneath what (as some persons pretended) they had a right to expect. It however was so ordered that I, who had no better pretensions than my sisters, should make what the world calls a good match-that is, I married a man who lived on his fortune in an elegant little villa in Berkshire. As it also was ordered that I should be early separated from my own daughters by their becoming wives, I took it into my head that I should be doing a vast service to the children of my sisters, by inviting one or two of them at a time, in order that I might introduce them to a superior style of society to what they were likely to see at home. Now, I rather wonder at this my mistaken notion of doing good, because I was actually at that period, which may now be ten years ago, very deeply impressed with the vast importance of religion; and not only impressed with this sentiment in a general way, but, I may presume to say, much instructed in the leading doctrines of Christianity. For example, the utter corruption of man in his natural state, and the completeness of the work which has been done for the salvation of the world; but be this as it may, I was permitted to follow the suggestions of my own mind on this occasion, and to send into the country for two of my nieces: viz., Catharine, the eldest daughter of my second sister, and Rebecca, who was also an eldest daughter in the family of my third sister. My reader will not be told what the rank in society of the fathers of these two young ladies was; he must content himself with knowing that both families lived deep in the north, and that the young people had never before taken a journey beyond the metropolis of their own county; notwithstanding which they were as totally different the one from the other as young women of the same age (for they were both be

tween the age of eighteen and twenty), could possibly be, though I can hardly say which of them was most unprepared for profiting by the opportunities which I had provided for them. For whereas Rebecca had been brought up in the bosom of her own family, her parents being persons who clung to forms because they were old, and called every thing heterodox which was new to them-Catharine, on the contrary, had received her ideas first from a father, who was opposed to all ancient authorities, whether legal or formal; and, secondly, from a schoolmistress, who, acting upon the same principles, never even taught a child to spell without a reference to Pestalozzi, or some other high-sounding name of modern renown. Thus having given the dramatis personæ of my narrative, I will beg my reader to accompany me on a certain fine morning in June in a drive from my little villa, which forms a very pretty object, from Maidenhead thicket to the town of Reading; in which town at a certain inn I was prepared to meet my nieces, who were supposed to have arrived there late

on the preceding evening. It had been many years

since I had seen my sisters,-the mothers of these two girls-and when informed by the hostess that two young ladies, answering to my description, were in a certain parlour which she pointed out, I ran along the passage, all on the qui vive, for I am naturally lively, and passing through a door opened to me by a waiter, I found myself the next minute in the presence of my nieces.

The moment my name was announced by the waiter, who knew me well, the young people came forward, and we embraced each other before we had time for reciprocal examination; after which, as we had an hour to wait while the horses rested, I sat down opposite my nieces, and while I looked upon them with no small anxiety, I failed not to put many questions respecting the several households in the north in which my affections still lingered; but, although I had a deep interest in the answers given me, I had a deeper, because a nearer interest, in considering how the young people before me would show in the eyes of my husband, who had (to speak candidly) always expressed some doubts of the policy of introducing them to a style of life for which probably they were not suited. On the first view Catharine certainly showed best; her figure was not bad,

though her air was by no means of the first ton; still she had something of an air; and though her manner was undoubtedly pert, yet it was not cold or sullen; that is, she had arrived at the second stage from ill breeding to the step above-the most depressed state of manner being that of sullen reserve the next above it being that of a forced and awkward endeavour to throw off this reserve-at which point, as I have said above, Catharine was arrived; and as pertness is preferable to sullenness, as being more open and tangible, I must confess that my heart, at this first meeting, opened more to Catharine than to her cousin, although it weighed in a scale which no man can use-there was perhaps as much or more solid worth in the one as in the other.

Rebecca had a face, features, and a complexion which ought to have made her handsome; her eyes were well formed, of a dark bluè; her nose straight, and her mouth small she was also red and white, and the red and white were in their right places; but with all these appertenances of beauty, her face entirely failed of producing the effect of beauty. As to her figure, she looked like one who, having been intended by nature to be tall, had been kept down and compressed by some unnatural force during the whole season of growth; this compressure having induced an answerable thickness in every limb. She received me with an unbending gravity-she answered my questions respecting her family without a smile-she gave me no title, and avoided looking me in the face when she spoke. I could not comprehend her manner, and after one or two efforts gave her up, and conversed only with Catharine.

We were sitting in a room from whence we could see the street. Some well-dressed ladies who passed by having drawn the attention of Catharine, soon after I had finished my catechism of the family history she broke out to the following effect-" So I see the style is quite different here to what it is with us down in the north, and Miss Pennythorn was quite right when she told me that it was no manner of use for her to have my things made up by our own dressmaker, for we never get any thing new with us till it is old about town-don't you think, aunt Stephens, that Miss Pennythorn's judgment was very good? papa says there are few such clever women anywhere;—and then, without

waiting a reply from me, she called upon Rebecca to look at some young lady at a shop door over the way"See how pretty and janty her bonnet sits," she exclaimed; "there is no milliner in our town could give such an air as that to a head-dress. Papa says that we are at the world's end in the north, behind every other land in modern improvements-don't you think papa's right, aunt Stephens?" Rebecca had got up slowly from her seat, and was looking into the street. "See there," resumed Catharine; "she will be gone before your eye catches her, aunt; she is a genteel person. But aunt Stephens, we were talking of papa-he is all for the new improvements, and so is Miss Pennythorn. She says that it is very kind of you to invite me here, because I shall see with you many new things, and shall be able to improve myself. Papa told me to thank you."

"I am obliged to your father, Catharine," I answered; "I like a person who receives an intended kindness in a cheerful, grateful manner. I would wish you to understand that I invited you and Rebecca to my house in order to profit you; but I can do you no good unless you receive my advances with kindness, and believe that I mean you well."

Catharine assured me that she did not doubt my kindness, and she spoke with the candour and openness of youth; but Rebecca was still silent, which, the other observing, began to rally her; then she said, "There is my cousin, she hates new things as much as I love them I tell her she will never improve."

"What do you mean?" asked Rebecca, looking at the same time wonderfully awkward.

"Why," replied Catharine, "you know how you argued with me last night, and told me how your papa admonished you-yes, that was your word-not to be adopting any new-fangled notions when you went into the world; and do you not recollect how you told me that old notions and old customs were the best, and that my papa and Miss Pennythorn were all wrong; and that if people were to follow them they would soon have no notions left, either of right or wrong?"

Rebecca coloured at this attack, which was by no means fair; for what people say in private should not be told openly; and as her reply seemed not to be forthcoming, I spoke for her, and said, "Come, Catharine, spare your cousin for the present, or, at least, let her

speak for herself, and explain her own sentiments, and to whom she pleases."

I expected a smile, at least, as a reward for my championship, but no such thing appeared. The same stiff, close gravity continued; and, by way of a test to both, I spoke of my husband, and said, "As he was only their uncle through me, they must both try to please him;" and I told them (what, I thank God, I could say with truth) that he was a man who was truly pious, and who desired to make his Bible the rule of his life. As no answer to this remark was at hand from either of the young ladies, it was impossible for me to carry this subject any farther; and as I found myself getting impatient with the intractability of one and the levity of the other of my nieces, I proposed a walk about the town till the horses were ready. And now, if Rebecca had annoyed me within doors, Cathraine was to be my torment without. We had not passed many yards before she fell in love with a hat, in the last extreme of the fashion, which was displayed in the window of the very milliner with whom I had been accustomed to deal. Not aware of this fancy, I turned into the shop, Rebecca having hinted that she wanted gloves; and while I was assisting the slow choice of the one, the other had actually, at another counter, purchased this same hat, and even despatched it in a bandbox to the inn; and when at length I turned round, she was trying a cloak so outre, that I could not have suffered her to exhibit it, even could she have prevailed upon me to let her purchase it.

"Dear Catharine,” I said, “it is not the thing, it will not do there are three colours too many, at least, about it, and frills and furbelows enough for each colour."

"But aunt," she replied, "it is the very newest fashion-it came from Paris, they tell me, last week, and from town this very morning."

"A very good reason, in truth," I answered; "it must be proper, because it is new:" however, I was imperative, and I ordered the milliner to put the cloak away.

A bookseller's shop, in which I had some business, was the next into which we entered; and there my troublesome niece had in a few moments overhauled half a dozen pamphlets, novels, and books of essaysone and all of which had the recommendation of being new, quite new, and just come from town:-" On which