green, or orange, and the leaves black. The sweet-scented pea, capuchins, dahlias, &c. are those most generally adopted. Feathers are also fashionable, though not quite so generally adopted as flowers, ; bonnets trimmed with them have either two long ones or a bouquet of four short feathers; the latter are usually placed near the top of the crown, where they are áttached a little on one side by a knot of ribbon.

Wadded silk, or cashmere dresses of the pelisse form, are now almost universally adopted in undress. They are always made with high bodies, and in a very plain style, generally speaking. We have, however, seen some ornamented down the front with pattes of the lozenge form, bordered with black lace, and the points united by bows of ribbon to correspond with the dress. Where this style of trimming is adopted, the dress is usually made with a small pelerine collar trimmed with black lace, but if there is no trimming, an embroidered muslin collar lined with rose-colored silk, and bordered with Valenciennes lace, supplies the place of one to the dress; a band of embroidered muslin lined with rose colored ribbon, and also bordered with lace, or rather we should say edging, for it is always very narrow, serves to attach the collar at the throat, and ties in a full bow and ends. Sometimes the collar is double, and, in that case, a ribbon of the color of the lining (generally but not always rose) passes between the two falls, and ties in short bows and ends at the throat.

Gauzes of various kinds, particularly satin-striped gauze, are fashionable for ball dress. The form of these robes is quite à l'antique, a pointed body with the skirt of excessive fulness set on in tripple plaits; the front of the body is ornamented with knots of ribbon so arranged as to form a stomacher, or else laced up with silk cord. This kind of trimming terminates in a knot of ribbon on the point, one to correspond adorns the breast; the body is always cut low. and the sleeves very short and full. The border is usually adorned with a wreath of flowers, or else bouquets are placed at regular distances. A mixture of black is exceedingly prevalent in ball dress, both for the materials and ornaments. Ball coiffures are extremely splendid, birds of Paradise, and ornaments of jewellery, particularly the former, which are adopted even with robes trimmed with flowers. Fashionable colors are different shades of green, violet, soucis, carrot-color orange, deep blue, ruby, and rose color.

Towards the end of those troublesome times, when England was shaken by the feuds of the houses of York and Lancaster, there resided, in a village near the banks of the Medway, a gentleman, whose name was Geoffry de Saint Clair, de. scended from a family of great antiquity and repute in those parts. The many launces, and pieces of armour, that hung round the old hall, did not render it more respectable than did the unbounded benevolence of its present possessor. The poor sat at his gate, and blessed his liberal hand; and never a pilgrim reposed in his porch, without remembering, in his orisons, its hospitable owner.

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Saint Clair had allied himself in marriage with the Lady Margaret de Boys, a woman of high birth, and rare endowments; whose accomplishments might have embellished the greatest scenes, had not a love of domestic life, and a religious cast of mind, induced her to prefer retirement. All her leisure hours, which her family did not call for, were spent in duties, which, in that age, ladies of the noblest rank exercised, without thinking they demeaned their stations ;she relieved the indigent,-advised with the unfortunate,visited the sick, and brought up her twin daughters, Frances and Isabella, in the same sentiments; - accustoming them very early to attend upon her in all those acts of primitive piety. As these young ladies were the solo issue of Saint Clair and Lady Margaret, they devoted their whole attention to their education; and had the comfort to find in their minds so rich a soil, that every thing prospered which was planted in them: no useful knowledge was omitted, no external accomplishment neglected.

Frances and Isabella were now arrived at the age of twentyfive. The amiableness of their characters, their enlarged understandings, and the gracefulness of their persons, won the admiration and esteem of all who approached them.They had, from similitude of manners and sentiment, contracted such a rare affection for each other, that it seemed as if nature, by forming them together in the womb, had prepared them for that extraordinary union, which was to distinguish their lives,-and for those effusions of elevated friendship, which the loss of their exemplary mother was one day to call forth. Nor was this event very remote; Lady Margaret was seized by a sudden illness, which, in a few days, carried her off, and desolated one of the happiest families in the world.

It would be difficult to describe the sounds of woe, which, on this occasion, echoed through all the mansion, or the sighs of the disconsolate poor under the windows. The grief of Saint Clair, after the many years of uninterrupted happiness that he had enjoyed with Lady Margaret, in its first attack, almost overpowered his reason;-whilst Frances and Isabella had the weight of a father's sorrow added to their own; which compelled them to smother their feelings, great as they were, and to assume a fortitude their hearts disavowed.

Lovely mourners!-more lovely in your tears!-Fancy pictures you before me, bathed in filial sorrow,-standing by and supporting your distracted parent-striving in vain to tear him from the coffin, which he will not suffer his servants to close, still demanding in wild utterance, again and again --one last-last look!-

Heavens !-how severe a distress!-If any reader hath been in a situation to ask for a last look of what is most dear to him, and what he is going to be deprived of for everhe alone can best judge how much that bosom agonizes, that urges the request!—

Though Saint Clair called in aid all his philosophy, to support himself under the loss of his beloved Lady Margaret, yet he was worn by a silent sorrow, which had so visible an effect on his health, as to menace his life; and which, in about a year, put an end to it.

In this mournful interval, the greatest comfort his dejected daughters received, was, from the frequent visits of their uncle, John de Saint Clair-who was at that time abbot of the monastery of Saint Augustin, in Canterbury; of which place there are, at this day, such noble remains existing.-He was the younger brother of Geoffry, though there was but the difference of a year between them; and was reputed to be a man of so much learning and virtue, that Saint Clair, by his will, recommended his children to his care and protection; bequeathing to each of them a very large inheritance.

The manner in which Frances had been brought up, added to her natural turn of mind, and the example of a mother she so much revered, determined her to a life of religious retirement; and a great convent of Benedictine Nuns, not very distant from Feversham, happening a few months after, to lose their principal (who was always one of a considerable family) the abbot of Saint Augustin, perceiving her fixed in her scheme of life, procured her to be named the lady abbess of it.

Isabella, who had never as yet been separated from her sister, would, on this occasion, most willingly have taken the veil."The same roof," says she, "hath ever hitherto covered us, -the same have been our wishes,-the same our pursuits ;the grave hath divided us from those who taught us the ami

ableness of friendship,-and shall alone divide us from one another!"

The abbot was much hurt by this declaration of his niece. He desired her to banish from her thought, such a resolution; and failed not to intimate to her, that Frances, having devoted herself to the cloister, she remained the only support of the family of Saint Clair; that her virtues should rather embellish society than be lost within the walls of a monastery; and wished she would, by accepting some alliance of suitable rank and fortuue, rather permit those accomplishments to be seen by the world, which she sought to hide in oblivion.

Frances, on her part, however she was charmed with this testimony of her sister's affection, joined in sentiment with her uncle.-expressing to her how much happier she should be to see her settle herself by marriage, and imitate the good life and example of their excellent mother.

"I am not, you know," says she, by the religious office 1 fill, tied down to all those rules which must of course be imposed on you;-my liberty remains ;-we shall have constant opportunities of continuing that intercourse of love our hearts so mutually desire. It will be the highest pleasure to me, to see you united to a man worthy your choice;-preserving in our father's castle that hospitality, for which it hath so long been farned; and whenever you shall wish to make a short retreat from the bustle of the world, our holy house will afford you a peaceable asylum."

It was not but with a great difficulty, nor even till much time after, that, by the repeated solicitations of Frances and her uncle, Isabella was prevailed on to relinquish entirely her intentions of entering on a monastic life. She resided for some time in her father's venerable old mansion on the Medway, accompanied by a widowed aunt, her father's sister; who, at intervals, attended her on visits to Frances,-and also, at particular seasons, to the abbot, at his house, which was a noble building, adjoining to the monastery of Saint Augustin.

It was in one of these visits to her uncle that she became acquainted with Henry de Belville, between whose father and the abbot there had long subsisted a most firm friendship. He was of good birth, though much inferior to Isabella in