Printed by T. Booker, at the Metropolitan Catholic Printing Office,

9, Rupert Street, Leicester Square.

Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.-Eccles. vii. 9.

ILD and ungovernable from her earliest infancy had been the spirit of Adela Herbert, who, at sixteen years of age, was still the spoiled pet and favourite of her family, as the youngest generally is. A violent impetuosity of temper, too often roused on the slightest and most trivial occasions, was the one great fault in a character which was otherwise singularly affectionate and amiable. But then this fault too often darkened those brightest traits in her disposition, and made her a torment to herself,

and all who came in her way when any sudden fit of anger seized her. A fair example of the contrary virtue, meekness, to this dreadful sin of anger which carries so many others in its train, was, however, constantly before the eyes of the irascible Adela, in the person of her elder sister, the mild and gentle Emily.

Emily Herbert was thirteen years the senior of Adela; and in consequence of her mother's death when the latter was an infant, the sole charge and care of the little girl as she grew up in life, devolved on herself. Emily too, had much to try her temper, and though now very sweet and patient she often found it necessary to bear in mind the words, "A soft answer turneth away wrath;"() for she was the eldest of a large family, and had three rough and high-spirited brothers, to whom she had not only been compelled to fulfil the several duties of a sister, but those of a mother also. But Emily Herbert had been tried in the hard school of affliction. Adversity had purified her heart; she found it indeed a sharp ordeal through which she had had to pass; but she had triumphed over all, and showed in

(a) Prov. xv. 1.