"Speak, my dear. You know that when I ask you to tell me any thing as your friend, I never punish you as your governess; therefore you need not be afraid to tell me what is the matter."
"No, madam, I am not afraid, but ashamed. You asked me why I was not with my companions. Why, madam, because they have all left me, and——" "And what, my dear?" "And I see that they all dislike me. And yet I don't know why they should, for I take as much pains to please as any of them. All my masters seem satisfied with me; and you yourself, ma'am, were pleased this very morning to give me this bracelet; and I am sure you would not have given it to any one who did not deserve it." "Certainly not. You did deserve it for your application—for your successful application. The prize was for the most assiduous, not for the most amiable." "Then if it had been for the most amiable it would not have been for me?"
Mrs. Villars, smiling—"Why, what do you think yourself, Cecilia? You are better able to judge than I am. I can determine whether or no you apply to what I give you to learn; whether you attend to what I desire you to do, and avoid what I desire you not to do. I know that I like you as a pupil, but I cannot know that I should like you as a companion, unless I were your companion; therefore I must judge of what I should do by seeing what others do in the same circumstances."
"O, pray don't, ma'am; for then you would not love me neither. And yet I think you would love me; for I hope that I am as ready to oblige, and as good-natured, as——" "Yes, Cecilia, I don't doubt but that you would be very good-natured to me, but I am afraid that I should not like you unless you were good-tempered too." "But, ma'am, by good-natured I mean good-tempered—it's all the same thing." "No, indeed, I understand by them two very different things. You are good-natured, Cecilia, for you are desirous to oblige and serve your companions, to gain them praise and save them from blame, to give them pleasure, and to relieve them from pain; but Leonora is good-tempered, for she can bear with their foibles, and acknowledge her own. Without disputing about the right, she sometimes yields to those who are in the wrong. In short, her temper is perfectly good, for it can bear and forbear."
"I wish that mine could," said Cecilia, sighing.
"It may," replied Mrs. Villars; "but it is not wishes alone which can improve us in any thing. Turn the same exertion and perseverance which have won you the prize to-day to this object, and you will meet with the same success; perhaps not on the first, the second, or the third attempt, but depend upon it that you will at last; every new effort will weaken your bad habits and strengthen your good ones. But you must not expect to succeed all at once; I repeat it to you, for habit must be counteracted by habit. It would be as extravagant in us to expect that all our faults could be destroyed by one punishment, were it ever so severe, as it was in the Roman emperor we were reading of a few days ago to wish that all the heads of his enemies were upon one neck, that he might cut them off by one blow."
Here Mrs. Villars took Cecilia by the hand, and they began to walk home. Such was the nature of Cecilia's mind, that, when any object was forcibly impressed on her imagination, it caused a temporary suspension of her reasoning faculties. Hope was too strong a stimulus for her spirits; and when fear did take possession of her mind, it was attended with total debility. Her vanity was now as much mortified as in the morning it had been elated. She walked on with Mrs. Villars in silence until they came under the shade of the elm-tree walk, and then, fixing her eyes upon Mrs. Villars, she stopped short. "Do you think, madam," said she, with hesitation, "do you think, madam, that I have a bad heart?"
"A bad heart, my dear! why, what put that into your head?"
"Leonora said that I had, ma'am, and I felt ashamed when she said so."
"But, my dear, how can Leonora tell whether your heart be good or bad? However, in the first place, tell me what you mean by a bad heart."