in the triumph of her falsehood, and in the supposed superior ascendancy it had gained her over her hostess above that of her more sincere companions. Nor, when Lady Delaval expressed her fear that the weight might be painful, would she allow it to be removed; but she declared that she liked her burden. At parting, Lady Delaval, in a tone of great significance, told her that she should hear from her the next day. The next morning Jemima often dwelt on these marked words, impatient for an explanation of them; and between twelve and one o'clock a servant of Lady Delaval's brought a letter and a band-box. The letter was first opened; and was as follows: "DEAR JEMIMA,

"As I know that you have long wished to visit my niece Lady Ormsby, and also to attend the astronomical lecture on the grand transparent orrery, which is to be given at the public rooms this evening, for the benefit of the Infirmary; though your praise-worthy prudence prevented you from subscribing to it, I have great pleasure in enclosing you a ticket for the lecture, and in informing you that I will call and take you to dinner at Lady Ormsby's at four o'clock, whence you and I, and the rest of the party, (which will be a splendid one) shall adjourn to the lecture"-" How kind! how very kind!" exclaimed Jemima; but, in her heart, imputing these favours to her recent flatteries; and reading no farther, she ran to her mother's apartment to declare the joyful news." “Oh, mamma!" exclaimed she, "how fortunate it was that ĺ made up my dyed gauze when I did! and I can wear natural flowers in my hair; and they are so becoming, as well as cheap." She then returned to her own room, to finish the letter and explore the contents of the box. But what was her consternation on reading the following words :

“ "But I shall take you to the dinner, and I give you the ticket for the lecture, only on this express condition, -that you wear the accompanying turban, which was decorated according to your taste and judgment, and in which you were conscious of looking so well.-Every additional ornament was bestowed to please you; and as I know that your wish will be not to deprive me of a head-dress in which your partial eyes thought that I looked so charmingly, I positively assure you that no consider

ation shall ever induce me to wear it; and that I expect you to meet my summons, arrayed in your youthful loveliness and my turban."

Jemima sat in a sort of stupor after perusing this epistle and when she started from it, it was to carry the letter and the turban to her mother. "Read that! and look at that!" she exclaimed, pointing to the turban. "Why, to be sure, Jemima, Lady Delaval must be making game of you," she replied. "What could produce such an absurd requisition?" When called upon to answer this question, Jemima blushed; and, for the first time, feeling some compunctious visitings of conscience, she almost hesitated to own, that the annoying conditions were the consequence of her flatteries.

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Still, to comply with them was impossible: and to go to the dinner and lecture without them, and thereby perhaps affront Lady Delaval, was impossible also.-"What! expect me to hide my pretty hair under that preposterous mountain? Never, never!" Vainly, now, did she try to admire it; and she felt its weight insupportable. be sure," said she to herself, "Captain Leslie and George Vaux will dine at Lady Ormsby's and go to the lecture; but then they will not bear to look at me in this frightful head-dress, and will so quiz me; and I am sure they will think me too great a quiz to sit by! No, no; much as I wish to go, and I do so very, very much wish it, I cannot go on these cruel conditions."

"But what excuse can you make to Lady Delaval ?”— "I must tell her that I have a bad toothache, and cannot go; and I will write her a note to say so! and at the same time return the ugly turban." She did so;-but when she saw Lady Delaval pass to the fine dinner, and heard the carriages at night going to the crowded lecture, she shed tears of bitterness and regret, and lamented that she had not dared to go without the conditional and detestable turban.

The next day she saw Lady Delaval's carriage drive up to the door, and also saw the servant take a band-box out. "Oh dear mamma," cried Jemima," I protest that ridiculous old woman has brought her ugly turban back again!" and it was with a forced smile of welcome that she greeted Lady Delaval. That lady entered the room with a graver and more dignified mien than usual; for

she came to reprove, and, she hoped, amend an offender against those principles of truth which she honoured, and to which she uniformly acted up.

Just before Lady Delaval appeared, Jemima recollected that she was to have the toothache; therefore she tied up her face, adding a PRACTICAL LIE to the many already told;-for one lie is sure to make many. "I was sorry to find that you were not able to accompany me to the dinner and lecture," said she; "and were kept at home by the toothache. Was that your only reason for staying at home?" "Certainly, madam; can you doubt it ?". "Yes; for I have strong suspicions that the toothache is a pretence, not a reality."-"This from you, Lady Delaval! my once kind friend." "Jemima, I am come to prove myself a far kinder friend than ever I did before. I am glad to find you alone; because I should not like to reprove a child before her mother.”

Lady Delaval then reproached her astonished auditor with the mean habit of flattery, in which she was so apt to indulge; assuring her that she had never been for one moment her dupe, and had insisted on her wearing the turban, in order to punish her despicable duplicity. "Had you not acted thus," continued Lady Delaval, " I meant to have taken you to the dinner and lecture, without conditions; but I wished to inflict on you a salutary punishment, in hopes of convincing you that there are no qualities so safe, or so pleasing as truth and ingenuousness.

I saw you cast an alarmed look at the hat-box," she added, in a gayer tone; "but fear not; the turban is no more! and, in its stead, I have taken the liberty of bringing you a Leghorn bonnet; and should you, while you wear it, feel any desire to flatter, in your usual degrading manner, may it remind you of this conversation, and its cause, and make your present mortification the means of your future good."

At this moment Jemima's mother entered the room, exclaiming: "Oh! Lady Delaval! I am glad you are come ! my poor child's toothache is so bad! and how unfortunate that "-Lady Delaval cast on the mistaken mother a look of severe reproof, and on the daughter one of pity and unavailing regret; for she felt that, for the child who is hourly exposed to the contagion of an unprincipled parent's example, there can be little chance of amendment;

and she hastened to the carriage, convinced that for the poor Jemima Aldred her labours of christian duty had been exerted in vain. She would have soon found how just her conviction was, had she heard the dialogue between the mother and daughter, as soon as she drove off. Jemima dried up her hypocritical tears, and exclaimed, "A cross, methodistical creature! I am glad she is gone!" "What do you mean, child? and what is all this about?" Jemima having told her, she exclaimed, "Why, the woman is mad! What! object to a little harmless flattery and call that lying, indeed! Nonsense! it is all a pretence. She hate flattery! no, indeed; if you were to tell her the truth, she would hate you like poison."" Very likely; but see, mamma, what she has given me. What a beautiful bonnet! But she owed it to me, for the trick she played me, and for her preaching." "Well, child," answered her mother, "let her preach to you every day and welcome, if she comes, as to-day, full-handed."

Such was the effect of Lady Delaval's kind efforts, on a mother so teaching, and a daughter so taught; for indelible indeed are those habits of falsehood and disingenuousness which children acquire, whose parents do not make a strict adherence to truth the basis of their children's education; and punish all deviation from it with salutary rigour. But, whatever be the excellences or the errors of parents or preceptors, there is one necessary thing for them to remember, or their excellences will be useless, and their faults irremediable; namely, that they are not to form their children for the present world alone;-they are to educate them not merely as the children of time but as the heirs of eternity.

LESSON XX.

The Ivy.-Addressed to a Young Friend.-B. BARTON.

Dost thou not love, in the season of spring,

To twine thee a flowery wreath,

And to see the beautiful birch-tree fling
Its shade on the grass beneath?

Its glossy leaf, and its silvery stem;

O dost thou not love to look on them?

And dost thou not love, when leaves are greenest,
And summer has just begun,

When in the silence of moonlight thou leanest,
Where glist'ning waters run,

To see, by that gentle and peaceful beam,
The willow bent down to the sparkling stream?

And O! in a lovely autumnal day,

When leaves are changing before thee,
Do not nature's charms, as they slowly decay,
Shed their own mild influence o'er thee?
And hast thou not felt, as thou stood'st to gaze,
The touching lesson such scene displays?

It should be thus, at an age like thine;

And it has been thus with me;

When the freshness of feeling and heart were mine As they never more can be:

Yet think not I ask thee to pity my lot,

Perhaps I see beauty where thou dost not.

Hast thou seen, in winter's stormiest day,
The trunk of a blighted oak,

Not dead, but sinking in slow decay,
Beneath time's resistless stroke,
Round which a luxuriant ivy had grown,

And wreath'd it with verdure no longer its own?

Perchance thou hast seen this sight, and then,
As I, at thy years might do,
Pass'd carelessly by, nor turned again

That scathed wreck to view :

But now I can draw, from that mouldering tree,
Thoughts which are soothing and dear to me.

O smile not! nor think it a worthless thing,
If it be with instruction fraught;
That which will closest and longest cling,
Is alone worth a serious thought!

Should aught be unlovely which thus can shed
Grace on the dying, and leaves not the dead?