CONTINUATION OF THE BRACELETS.

The first of June was now arrived, and all the young competitors were in a state of the most anxious suspense.  Leonora and Cecilia continued to be the foremost candidates; their quarrel had never been finally adjusted, and their different pretensions now retarded all thoughts of a reconciliation.  Cecilia, though she was capable of acknowledging any of her faults in public before all her companions, could not humble herself in private to Leonora; Leonora was her equal, they were her inferiors; and submission is much easier to a vain mind, where it appears to be voluntary, than when it is the necessary tribute to justice or candour.  So strongly did Cecilia feel this truth that she even delayed making any apology, or coming to any explanation with Leonora, until success should once more give her the palm.

If I win the bracelet to-day, said she to herself, I will solicit the return of Leonora’s friendship; it will be more valuable to me than even the bracelet; and at such a time, and asked in such a manner, she surely cannot refuse it to me.  Animated with this hope of a double triumph, Cecilia canvassed with the most zealous activity; by constant attention and exertion she had considerably abated the violence of her temper, and changed the course of her habits.  Her powers of pleasing were now excited, instead of her abilities to excel; and, if her talents appeared less brilliant, her character was acknowledged to be more amiable; so great an influence upon our manners and conduct have the objects of our ambition.  Cecilia was now, if possible, more than ever desirous of doing what was right, but she had not yet acquired sufficient fear of doing wrong.  This was the fundamental error of her mind; it arose in a great measure from her early education.

Her mother died when she was very young; and though her father had supplied her place in the best and kindest manner, he had insensibly infused into his daughter’s mind a portion of that enterprising, independent spirit, which he justly deemed essential to the character of her brother.  This brother was some years older than Cecilia, but he had always been the favourite companion of her youth; what her father’s precepts inculcated, his example enforced, and even Cecilia’s virtues consequently became such as were more estimable in a man than desirable in a female.

All small objects and small errors she had been taught to disregard as trifles; and her impatient disposition was perpetually leading her into more material faults; yet her candour in confessing these, she had been suffered to believe, was sufficient reparation and atonement.

Leonora, on the contrary, who had been educated by her mother in a manner more suited to her sex, had a character and virtues more peculiar to a female; her judgment had been early cultivated, and her good sense employed in the regulation of her conduct; she had been habituated to that restraint, which, as a woman, she was to expect in life, and early accustomed to yield; compliance in her seemed natural and graceful.