the lovely mind as of the lovely face. For Helen there is a yet darker doom; her imagination exaggerates every suffering; her keen feelings cannot lie dormant—she needs to love and be loved; amusement never can be to her the sole business of life—she requires to be interested. What can a future, where love is not, offer to her?" She paused, for her eyes had filled with tears, and, to conceal them, she stooped over her work.
"You do not," said Mr. Glentworth, after a brief pause, "speak of your elder sisters, or of yourself."
"Alas!" replied Isabella, "you must have perceived that Mary is heart and spirit-broken; and Louisa is in a fair way of being the same: 'hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' As to myself, as mamma often says, I am not pretty; I have not, therefore, the same brilliant chances of marriage that my sisters have."
Mr. Glentworth was for a moment silent with surprise at the air of entire conviction with which this was said; the next, he could not help looking at the girl who so quietly avowed that she was not pretty. He did not think it necessary, however, to state that his own opinion was different, so he went on with the conversation.
"You prefer, then, having the money to the ornaments which I had intended for you?"
"Oh! the hundred pounds, certainly," exclaimed Isabella, colouring a little at the idea of trespassing on the donor's generosity.
