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54 direction at all, occasioned such accomplished parents to undervalue, if possible, Mrs. Arundel's understanding. In short, as her mother justly observed, in a very clever letter to Mrs. Denbigh, her corresponding friend, "she was just fit to be married." And married she was, thanks to the affinities of landed property! To prettiness—even with her most becoming cap, or her most indulgent mirror, she could make no pretension. Her ambition had hitherto been confined to being the best of wives,—so she scolded the servants—opened no book but her book of receipts—made soup without meat—decocted cowslips, parsneps, currants, and gooseberries, which, if not good wine, were very tolerable vinegar—bought bargains, for which no possible use could afterwards be found—worried her husband with petty economy, and yet contrived to combine all this with a very handsome share of personal expense; and as to her accounts, they would have puzzled the calculating boy himself.

While Mr. Arundel lived, the innate respectability of his character communicated itself in a degree to hers. Naturally of quiet and retired habits, the seclusion of his library, at first a refuge, soon became a necessity. At