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 interior of all the families in the kingdom, what scenes of domestic misery would present themselves to our view, all originating in this accursed passion for gentility!"

"I believe, indeed," said Mrs Mason, "that, with regard to my own sex at least, the love of dress, and desire of admiration, have ruined hundreds, for one that has been brought to misery through the strength of other passions."

"True," replied Mr Stewart. "But it is not to that silly vanity alone that I allude; it is to that still sillier ambition of figuring in a higher station, which destroys all notions of right and wrong, rendering vice and folly, if gilded by fashion, the objects of preference, nay of high and first regard. What could my daughter Bell have thought of such a silly fellow as Mollins, if he had been the son of a neighbouring farmer?"

"Indeed, my good sir," returned Mrs Mason, "there is no accounting for the