The meaning of it seems to be, that they should maintain a becoming silence in company; so they should: but there are occasions when silence on their part would cease. to be becoming; for instance, when any improper freedom of discourse or of conduct. takes place in their presence. There is a dignity in innocence and virtue which may check this freedom, and it should be exercised when occasion calls for it. There is great power in the deportment of a modest young woman, to repel impropriety. I cannot refrain from noticing here, with the indignation it merits, a practice among some young men, of uttering in the presence of young women, whom they have reason to believe are modest and virtuous, words and phrases of double meaning. An open insult any virtuous young woman will resent, but what resource has she when a villain, as I shall call him, insults her in a way which she knows not how to resent? Under a thin disguise, he will utter the grossest things: if she blushes, then she understands

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them; if she does not blush, then she is hardened, and past blushing: if she attempt to check such language, she is advanced a step farther still in effrontery. This is one of the most painful situations in life in which a modest young woman can be placed; but let men who practise such baseness, be warned that they thus render themselves objects of detestation to virtuous females, and that it is the extreme of cowardice to offer an insult where there is no possibility of

vengeance.

In forming female manners, modesty should be the basis, then the structure will be fair and firm. Charters says of children, that "their innate modesty should be respected." A review of the works of nature will teach us that modesty is a characteristic of early days. The beauties of spring peep forth, as if afraid to shew themselves: the buds scarcely unfold: the primrose ventures to disclose her modest hues on the bank which gives her shelter; the violet

hides her lovely head beneath the leaves of her parent plant. Nature herself appears timid in the spring of the year; she gladdens the heart with the promise of future excellence; still she renders it a chastened gladness: she smiles, but it is through tears; she is beautiful, but clouds soften her beauty. Modesty gives a charm to every talent, to every accomplishment, to every virtue: the mild and chaste lustre of the moon sheds a softened grace over the beauties of creation. Modesty implies innocence of heart, good sense, a lowly mind, a disposition to exalt others in preference to ourselves: let therefore a young woman's innate modesty be respected; let it be cherished and established, and she will not fail to be correct in ber manners and behaviour.

CHAP. IV.

THERE were days when ladies thought it amiable and attractive in them to scream at the sight of a spider, and faint away if a frog crossed their path: let us hope that these days are over. There have been ladies, too, who have wept over a dead lapdog, while their husbands and children were disregarded: we will hope, too, that this race is becoming extinct. Sensibility properly directed, and kept within due bounds, is a source of some of our highest gratifications; but directed into unworthy channels, and suffered to overflow, it degenerates into irritability, weakness, selfishness, and cruelty.

As it is committed to women to minister to the wants of infancy, to pain, sickness, and in death, so nature has endowed them with dispositions essential to the offices required of them. It is an important branch in female education early to accustom girls to perform offices of humanity and charity, even though they be painful ones. Nature gives nothing in vain. If females possess tender feelings, it is that these feelings may be put in exercise to increase human comfort, and to lessen the sum of human misery. Who possesses real tenderness? she who performs kind offices for those in distress, or she whose excess of sensibility prevents her from so doing? Epictetus tells us of a father who ran out of the room when his child was dangerously ill, and justified his conduct on the ground of natural affection: he enquired of him, has her mother no affection for the child? He replied, Yes, surely." And does not her nurse love her? She does. Then they also ought to have run away, and from the great affection of her parents and