very nervous, and I declare I would rather have remained there the whole night, than have ventured past the horrid animal."

"My arrival there must be esteemed most fortunate," said he, "but I own I am astonished at the rudeness of the man in the farm-yard, who contented himself with looking on."

"Oh. he was a brute," cried Margaret, "no better than the dog—but what else can you expect from boors like him. They have no sentiment or feeling."

"I do not agree with you," replied Mr. Howard, "I assure you, I have often been struck with instances of disinterested kindness and generosity amongst the labouring classes, which prove that they are endowed with excellent feelings."

"They have no delicacy or sentiment," said Margaret, "and without that they are uninteresting to me. I own my partiality for the favorites of nature, the gentle and elegant in manner, the aristocratic in birth and breeding."

"Still I think you do our peasantry injustice, if you suppose them destitute of delicacy of feeling, because they have not a refined way of expressing their thoughts in words," replied Mr. Howard. "Their manners of course are uncultivated, and their habits are what you would call unrefined—and no one would wish they should be cursed with the desire for elegancies, which habit has rendered indispensable with us, but which must be unattainable to them; but the germs of generosity, gratitude, and self-sacrifice for the good of others, may be found in many a one who would be puzzled to express his ideas in words."

"I dare say that is very true," replied Margaret; "but I must say I think them very coarse and clownish; now and then one sees a pretty looking girl; but the men are all detestable."

"I have little to say for their manners or persons," said Mr. Howard; "but, I assure you, I have met with poetical though uncultivated minds amongst labouring men—the true poetry of nature."

"It must be very odd poetry expressed in such gothic language," said Margaret, laughing: as she had not the smallest poetical feeling herself, she could not comprehend what he meant when he talked of it, and concluded that the peasantry spoke in rhyme, or, at least, blank verse.

At this moment the entrance of the other young ladies cut short the discussion, and introduced a new subject. Charles, who had been standing by his mother, earnestly contemplating the 

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