"And I rather think, Grace," said young Armstead, (who had taken his sister's place in the carriage,) "you were not sorry to have an opportunity of giving to our cousin Norton a practical instance of your contempt of her aristocracy-and of manifesting to another observer your elevation above the prejudices of society."

Miss Campbell did not notice the last clause of her cousin's sentence except by a slight blush: she pleaded guilty to the desire of mortifying the baseless pride of Mrs. Norton. "There was nothing," she said, "more essentially vulgar than the consequence that betrayed, by its perpetual vigilance and jealousy, a consciousness that there existed no intrinsic superiority-an exclusive bigoted spirit ought not to receive any toleration in our societyit was opposed to the genius and tendencies of every thing about us-we were happily exempt from the servitude of oriental castes, and the scarcely less arbitrary classifications of more liberal countries. Superior talents-education-manners-the habits of refined life, were the only distinctions that ought to obtain among us, and they were quite obvious."

"Ah coz, I see how it is. Like the Duchess of Gordon, who replied to the managers of the city assembly at New-York, when they apologised for not being able to offer her the precedence to which her rank entitled her, never mind, gentlemen, wherever I am, there is the Duchess of Gordon.' Like her Grace, you are satisfied

that Miss Campbell's is the first place that this modern heraldry of merit will always give her precedence."

"Thank you, William, for your generous personal application of my principles-you need not shake your head-I am in no danger of mistaking any thing you say to me for a compliment."

"Believe me, Grace,” replied her cousin, affectionately taking her hand, "I never was in more imminent danger of joining my voice to the choral song of your flatterers. I sympathise entirely in your desire to dissipate the illusions of our conceited and, thank Heaven, far-off' cousin Norton-in your admiration of our new acquaintance and in some other new feelings," he added, lowering his voice to a whisper, "that are getting the mastery in your heart-and I pray heaven you may always show yourself as entirely superior to the adventitious distinctions of the world, as with your character you may afford to be."

"A bona fide compliment from William Armstead!--Saul among the prophets !" exclaimed Grace Campbell.

101

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Il y a dans l'aspect de la contrée quelque chose de calme et de doux qui prépare l'âme à sortir des agitations de la vie."

Madame de Stael.

Ir was a fine afternoon in the month of August when our travellers passed the romantic road which traverses the mountain that forms the eastern boundary of the valley of Hancock. The varied pleasures they had enjoyed during the day, and the excitement of drawing near to the object of their long journey, animated them both with unusual spirits. Deborah's tongue was voluble in praise of the rich farms that spread out on the declivities of the hills, or embosomed in the protected vallies, called forth, as they deserved, the enthusiastic commendations of our experienced rustic. Ellen listened in silence while she gazed with the eye of an amateur upon this beautitul country, which possesses all the elements of the picturesque. Green hills crowned with flourishing villages-village spires rising just where they should rise; for the scene is nature's temple, and the altar should be there-lakes sparkling like gems in the distant vallies-Saddle mountain lifting his broad shoulders to the northern sky, and the Cats

kills defining with their blue and misty outline the western horizon.

A sudden exclamation from Deborah fixed Ellen's attention to one spot in the wide spread landscape. "As I live," she said, "there is the very place at last-see, Ellen, the yellow houses they told us of."

Ellen turned her eye to the long line of habitations of a uniform colour and appearance, which, stretching along the plain and sheltered by the surrounding hills, seem sequestered from the world, and present an aspect of peace and comfort, if not of happiness.

Ellen, as others have done, wondered that this strange people, who in their austere judgment would condemn the delight that springs from natural beauty as the gratification of the lust of the eye,' should have selected a spot of such peculiar charms.

"Ah," said Debby, as her eye wandered over the stubble fields and the rich crops that were yet unreaped, "these are knowing people--they understand their temporals-they have chosen their land well."

'Then,' thought Ellen, it may be that the maxim, the useful is the beautiful,' holds good in relation to our mother earth, and that she lavishes her smiles upon those of her loyal children who seek her favours: sure I am, no professed admirers of the beauties of nature-no connoisseur in all the charms of the various combinations of mountain and valley, pasture hills and rich mea

dows, dashing streams and quiet lakes, could have selected a more beautiful residence than this.'

Her meditations were suddenly cut short by another exclamation from Deborah, who had now turned an angle in the road and entered the village street.

"Well, if this does not beat all! Just look here, Ellen, at this little bright stream," and she pointed to a small rivulet that sparkled like a chain of burnished silver in the sunbeams, "see where it comes racing down the hill yonder, and here, where it crosses the street, it darts under ground as if to hide its capers from these solemn people-the thing has sense in it."

Ellen smiled, and asked "if it would not be well to imitate its discretion, and inquire at which house they should find the elder sister Susan ?"

Deborah immediately stopped her horse, and waited for the coming up of one of the brethren, who was approaching them from an adjoining field. She spent the few moments of waiting in admiring the large richly stocked garden, without weeds or waste places, the fine stone-posts to the fences, the neatly sawn wood, piled with mathematical exactness, the clean swept street, and all the neat arrangements of the shaker economy, so striking to an eye accustomed only to the slipshod ways of our country people.

In the meanwhile Ellen was looking eagerly at the windows of a large house near which they had halted, to discern if possible the well-known fea