own capacities, and are entirely unaware of the vast difference between the intellects of one man and another. Whilst those who by their own intellectual powers are raised above the common level, take in, at one keen and rapid view, the different mental altitudes of their companions, and appreciating alone the grand and elevated turn from more ordinary minds with indifference, contempt or disgust."

"I hope," said Emma rather doubtingly, "that your description is not intended to apply to me: that is, if I understand you rightly. I should be very sorry to think I am guilty of setting up my understanding as a measure for that of others, or of despising any of my companions as thinking them less clever than myself."

"Indeed I did not mean to accuse you of voluntarily giving way to such feelings—the sensation I meant to depict is as involuntary as your perception of light or colour. A person endowed with a superior understanding could no more help deciding on the different mental capacities of her companions than she could on the beauty or fitness of the patterns of their gowns."

"But the superiority of mental capacities, or our own estimation of them ought not to be the standard by which we should judge of the merits of our fellow-creatures, Mr. Morgan. Surely their moral superiority is a far more important point, and it would be much better to live with a good but ignorant man, than with a wicked one however clever and well-informed."

Mr. Morgan rather curled his lip.

"I doubt whether you will find your maxim work well in every day life, however well it may sound in theory. The practice of mankind is against it universally, and where that is the case it is because the sense of the world leads them to the conclusion which you reject. Look around, and see who has most success in life, the clever, unscrupulous, and if you will the unprincipled man, or the sober, plodding, moral one, without wit or wisdom to prevent his sinking lower than the condition in which he was born."

Emma had not the vanity to suppose that she could be a match for Mr. Morgan in dispute, she was, therefore, contented to let the subject drop. Finding she did not reply, he moved his chair a little closer than before, and said, in a tone of the softest sympathy,

"Are you quite well this evening? dusk as it is, I am struck with your looks, and was so at dinner."

She thanked him, and replied she 

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