home, and felt too sensibly the arrogance and ostentatious vanity of Madame Cheron’s conversation. “Can this be my father’s sister!” said she to herself; and then the conviction that she was so, warming her heart with something like kindness towards her, she felt anxious to soften the harsh impression her mind had received of her aunt’s character, and to show a willingness to oblige her. The effort did not entirely fail; she listened with apparent cheerfulness, while Madame Cheron expatiated on the splendour of her house, told of the numerous parties she entertained, and what she should expect of Emily, whose diffidence assumed the air of a reserve, which her aunt, believing it to be that of pride and ignorance united, now took occasion to reprehend. She knew nothing of the conduct of a mind, that fears to trust its own powers; which, possessing a nice judgment, and inclining to believe, that every other person perceives still more critically, fears to commit itself to censure, and seeks shelter in the obscurity of silence. Emily had frequently blushed at the fearless manners, which she had seen admired, and the brilliant nothings, which she had heard applauded; yet this applause, so far from encouraging her to imitate the conduct that had won it, rather made her shrink into the reserve, that would protect her from such absurdity. 

 Madame Cheron looked on her niece’s diffidence with a feeling very near to contempt, and endeavoured to overcome it by reproof, rather than to encourage it by gentleness. 

 The entrance of supper somewhat interrupted the complacent discourse of Madame Cheron and the painful considerations, which it had forced upon Emily. When the repast, which was rendered ostentatious by the attendance of a great number of servants, and by a profusion of plate, was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant came to show Emily to hers. Having passed up a large staircase, and through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which led into a short passage in a remote part of the château, and there the servant opened the door of a small chamber, which she said was Ma’amselle Emily’s, who, once more alone, indulged the tears she had long tried to restrain. 

 Those, who know, from experience, how much the heart becomes attached even to inanimate objects, to which it has been long accustomed, how unwillingly it resigns them; how with the sensations of an old friend it meets them, after temporary absence, will understand the forlornness of Emily’s feelings, of Emily shut out from the only home she had known from her infancy, and thrown upon a scene, and among persons, 

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