PREFACE. 'In the day of adversity consider.' ECCLE. vii, 14. IF the sympathy and approval of one friendly mind be an object of legitimate ambition, how deeply gratifying must it be to the Author of this narrative, that the feelings and characters it is intended to describe, should excite so much interest among many. Two thousand copies of this volume have been circulated within a year, and a most encouraging demand has already been made for a new edition, to meet the wishes of those who have taken a friendly interest in the thoughts and feelings of Jane Bouverie. It was a favorite suggestion of the late much-lamented Basil Hall, frequently urged with characteristic eagerness on the Author's consideration, that, as crowds of excellent books have already been addressed to wives, mothers, and daughters, a useful and interesting volume might now be devoted to that hitherto neglected class, the single ladies, or, par excellence, "The Sisters of England.” The proposed pages were not to contain a long tissue of sententious advice-which every lady would give away, magnificently bound, to her friends, and which no one would read herself-but to develope, through the more attractive medium of a story, the gradual progress of Christian excellence, amidst the trials, the duties, and the pleasures of domestic life. The difficulty, however, of doing justice to such an undertaking, appeared so much more prominently before the Author's mind than the hope of success, that, with a well-founded diffidence of her own ability, she laid aside the project entirely. It is, as she then considered, an acknowledged fact, that in a story, merely good-sort-of-people are the most unmanageable of all, and, as the rarest achievement in portrait-painting is to represent the feminine loveliness of a graceful woman-so in fiction, to sketch an unexaggerated outline of a truly graceful female character, without formality, and without any romantic impossibilities of perfection, is an almost hopeless enterprise. The idea, too, of a novel not ending in marriage, with perfect happiness, and at least £1500 a-year, is, to all concerned, as unsatisfactory and disappointing as a nut without a kernel. After many exhortations, therefore, from the partial friend, who continued impregnable in his belief that such a volume might be made popular, the subject was for a time entirely forgotten. Recent circumstances having unhappily thrown much of the Author's time vacant, once far more pleasingly occupied, she has been tempted at length to venture upon that field of enterprise formerly pointed out with so much encouragement by the friendly hand of one who lives not to witness her success or failure. Other friends, and yet dearer relatives, whom to please was the Author's chief motive in exertion, and her best reward in success, having since departed, she feels that, however grateful to a most indulgent public for past favors, any approbation or censure now can but add a pang to her own grief for those who are never more to sympathize with her in joy or in sorrow. Should the more serious part of these pages render them unpalatable to the young and gay, might the Author be permitted to mention, that when her pen is thus resumed once again-and perhaps once too often-it is with a most single-hearted desire of usefulness, at a time when no other motive could have fitted her for exertion, and no other hope could have excited any interest. the Author yields to no one living in her desire for the happiness of all, she would not unnecessarily cast a cloud upon the cheerfulness of young or old, but she has, amidst recent sorrow, become deeply conscious, that while joy and grief have each a solace peculiar to itself, the serious part of As our nature is the best and greatest. Those who seek enjoyment only in the daylight and sunshine, lose a different, but far more sublime delight, which might be found in contemplating, even though surrounded by midnight darkness, the distant glories of heaven. The sad uncertainty of human life has been peculiarly forced upon the Author's mind of late, when during one melancholy fortnight she was doomed to lament, amidst three generations of her own family, the loss in each of its brightest ornament. The promising young heir of her brother's house, who grew up, in talents, appearance, and disposition, all that his fond parents had hoped -a sister, to whose enlightened piety, cultivated understanding, and uninterrupted confidence she owed her happiest hours—and a mother, who sunk unexpectedly into the grave, heart-broken for the death of so dutiful and affectionate a daughter. Long since, in the bloom of youth and beauty, that mother, a model of every domestic excellence, devoted her time, talents, and accomplishments, with ceaseless diligence, to the |