The decision does not signify. No lamb, since the beginning of time, has been called upon to choose between the company of its kin, and the fellowship of the lap-dog-and till the end of it, no mother sheep will have occasion to determine whether her offspring shall be bred in the sheep-fold or the lady's bower. While I was tracing the destiny of the innocent brute, I was really contemplating that of its mistress, and many others within my observation. For who that views reflectively the aspect of society in the present day, but must be struck with the endeavour visible throughout it, to thrust ourselves, to thrust our children out of the place that providence has designed them for, into some other that seems to be more happy, more elevated, or more honourable; to make them something that their fathers are not, to give them tastes and habits above their birthright, and procure for them other society than that of their equals. 1 believe it is a losing game, even to the calculators of this world-to the heirs of immortality, I am persuaded it is a sinful one, and as such am induced to speak of it. This struggle to be thought, to seem, to be, whether we consider the stake that is played for, the means that are used, or the risk of the venture, is utterly opposed to the tone and principle of a christian mind, and incompatible altogether with the requisitions of a holy life.

I know no better illustration of my meaning, than the situation and character of Julia Arnot. Her parents lived retired on a secure income of five hundred a year —whether originally acquired in trade, in arts of war, or arts of peace, I do not know-nobody in the town of W. knew, and therefore it did not signify. Their income was sufficient for their habits of life, and was the certain inheritance of their only child. Moderate, retired, and religious in their habits, heaven's blessing was on their store; and they had no desires for themselves beyond their picturesque cottage at the entrance of Wtheir garden, their little paddock, and their cows. They had to spare, moreover. They had milk and broken

victuals for the hungry, kind words for the afflicted, and pious counsel for the unwise. They were excellent and beloved; there was no appearance of having fallen from a higher station; neither was there lowness or rudeness to betray a mean original. Julia in this home might have been the happiest of human beings. Every thing she could reasonably desire, every thing, I must think, a christian woman is justified in desiring, was within her reach. Nay-all things are by comparison; and in the little town of W-, among the ten children of the vicar, and the seven daughters of the apothecary, and other expectants of like doubtful dividends, Julia Arnot, heiress of five hundred a year, was prima donna. And Julia too might have been first in better things than wealth. Providence had richly graced her; she was good and she was lovely, she was benevolent and-I would say, that she was pious-but God has said, If any man love the things of the world, the love of God is not in him. The things of the world are many-but if some may be more peculiarly called so than others, it must be those factitious advantages, the whole value of which depends on convention and the world's opinion. I would rather not say whether Julia Arnot was pious.

I must be brief, for I mean to draw a sketch, and not to write a story. These happy people had no bitter in their cup, but that they prepared for themselves, or rather for their child. They were curst, for I can call it nothing less, with a desire to elevate her station in life, and place her in society above their own. Was this a blameable desire? I know that the world will say it was not. I know that from one end of society to the other, from the plodding tradesman, who stints himself to bring up his sons to a profession, to the prosperous commoner whose chariot wheels go heavily, because there is no coronet on the pannels, the elevation of our children is considered a legitimate object of parental care. There is another view of it, however, to the deep-searching eye of truth. If the higher paths of life be the safer ways to

heaven, if the distinctions of earth be badges of heaven's favour, if the exalted and admired of men be more sheltered from temptation, and more incited to holiness, then elevation in the scale is a legitimate object of desire. If precisely the contrary of this be the case-if God feeds the poor while the rich are sent empty away, if not many great, not many wise or learned have been called, if they who sow to the flesh are to reap a harvest of corruption, if honours are a temptation and riches a snare-if He, in whose footsteps we desire to walk, chose to himself the lowest path, and chose his followers there, and left them there, and bequeathed lowliness and poverty for their inheritance to the end of time-if this is so, how can the elevation of our children above the sphere in which providence has placed them, be a reasonable object of desire?

Julia's parents thought it so. How it came first into their heads, I do not know; unless it was at her christening, when lord Macdougal, an early patron of the family, stood god-father by proxy, and Macdougal was given her for a second name. In the same course of good or evil fortune, a certain Sir Peter Paulett lived with his family at a large place, within a few miles of W

His children were of the age of the little Julia; they looked at each other at church; they met with their nurses in the fields; and ultimately, when the Miss Pauletts were particularly good, they were allowed to have Julia Arnot home to play with them. The parents, instead of perceiving, as they might have done, the growth of ambition and vanity from these visits, began to perceive in them the destination of their Julia to a higher sphere of life. And why not? She would have an independence-as much as the usual fortune of a peer's daughter. By a little more frugality at home, they could give her a polished education. She could be sent to a fashionable school to make connexion with genteel girls ; they could keep her up a little from the young people of the town; and no doubt she would continue to be no

ticed at the Hall when she grew up. If piety ever whispered that at the fashionable school she would learn the tone and temper of the world they had renounced for her, that at the Hall she would learn tastes and desires their small competency would be insufficient to gratify, that the polish of her education might be at the cost of that holy simplicity she would have imbibed from their example, it was silenced by the plea that she would have an extended sphere of usefulness, that the favour of God is not confined to station, that low society can never be essential to the cultivation of religious principle. What then is low society, that thing of all others a parent may reasonably dread and religiously avoid? Is it not a thing of comparison? Can any one be lowered by the society of their equals? The children of the peer are in low society if he associates them with the children of his tradesmen, though honester men, it may be, and wiser than himself. The tradesmen's children are in low society if companioned with the day-labourer and mechanic; and these again have a precedence which they would dishonour by association with the vagabond pauper. The children of God-would that they always thought soare in low society whenever they choose their fellowship with those who know him not, however high may be their rank above them.

Julia's parents did not think so. All these plans were executed, and, strange to say, they all succeeded. Julia went to school in London; she was clever and gained credit, she was amiable and gained friends; she formed friendship and correspondence with girls of rank and fortune superior to her own; she came back polished and accomplished; and she was received at the Hall, the favourite companion of the Miss Pauletts.

Was Julia a happy girl? the happier for her separation from kith and kin?' There were those who thought so. The young ladies of W. thought so-and mistaking the soreness of their own envy for wounds inflicted by another's pride, instead of friends by whom she might

have been cherished, and whom she might have led to every good, they became her unprovoked enemies. The young gentlemen of W. thought so-and where equal fortunes might have promised suitable alliance and permanent domestic happiness, it was impossible to suppose Miss Arnot would condescend. The parents-I am not sure what they thought by this time—a parent's eye is keen to read the bosom of a child-a Christian's eye is keen to perceive the punishment of his own errors, I can only relate what I witnessed.

Every day I witnessed the struggle between duty and feeling-between pride and circumstance-between the desire of being, and the consciousness of not being. The demon of Gentility or Ungentility-for I can scarcely tell which it was, that poor Julia's imagination had embodied to be its perpetual torment-haunted her in city and in field, when she sat in the house, and when she walked by the way, alone or in company, Sunday and working day-nothing could equal the torment of this merciless poursuivant. From the most frivolous amusement to the most important of duties, there was nothing it did not meddle with.

Julia had too much mind to care for dress. She had not the smallest pleasure in it for its own sake. But then the dread of being ungenteel-one must conform to the society one lives in. Her allowance ran short-she could not bear to see it thus expended-she hated the selfish and useless purchases-but what could she do? She must be dressed genteelly, and be like her companions. I saw her one day in a predicament upon this matter. She went to buy a bonnet. She had but two guineas in the world, and one was reserved for some more important purposes. There were two bonnetsthey were alike in shape, equally tasteful, and equally becoming-but one was of straw, and the other of Leghorn; the one was a guinea, the other exceeded two. She had really no choice between them. But the town ladies all wore straw-it was so ungenteel-all her