'I only know her from what my cousins told me,' said Anne; 'they seem to have a great respect for her, though Helen is the only person she ever seems to talk to. I never could make her speak three words to me.'

'She has a fine countenance and very sweet expression, certainly,' said Lady Merton.

'Poor girl,' said Sir Edward; 'she blushes so much, that it was almost painful to look at her.'

'You seem to be utterly deficient in proofs of her excellence,' said Rupert; 'you will leave her a blank page at last.'

'Pages are not always blank when you see nothing on them,' said Lady Merton; 'characters may be brought out by the fire.'

'Yes, Mamma, the fire of temptation,' said Anne; 'and I have heard Lucy tried by her mother's violence, and she never concealed any part of the truth as far as only regarded herself, even to avoid those terrible unjust reproofs, and put herself forward to bear her sister's share of blame; and she was firm in turning back from the Mechanics' Institute when her sister scolded her.'

'Firmness, which, in so timid a person, proved that she had more self-control than any of you,' said Sir Edward.

'Then let us wind up the history of our visit in a moral style,' said Anne, 'and call it a lesson on Self-control and Self-conceit.'

'Nonsense,' said Rupert; 'do you think that if anyone read its history, they would learn any such lesson unless you told them beforehand?'

'Perhaps not,' said Sir Edward, 'as you have not learnt it from your whole life.'

'No,' said Lady Merton; 'that lesson is not to be learnt by anyone who is not on the watch for it.'

'So we conclude with Mamma's wisdom,' said Rupert.

'And Rupert's folly,' said Anne.