ELIZABETH FRY, accomplishments. They all had a taste for music ; some of them sang delightfully. Especially would Rachel and Elizabeth thrill their hearers with the pathos of their rich warblings. They danced with the grace of wood nymphs ; and Elizabeth excelled in equestrian exercises. There was always gaiety and company at the Hall and the sisters were courted and admired by all. Left to their own re- sources, strangers to religious feeling of any kind, thinking religious meetings an unfortunate necessity, these beautiful girls were fast becoming mere spark- ling motes in the sunbeam of prosperity, aimless and thoughtless nonentities. When her health permitted, none entered with more zest into the amusements by which they were surrounded than Elizabeth. Being quick and clever, she soon, in a great measure, atoned for the neglect of her studies in childhood, by observing the manners and acquirements of the throng around her. The , fashion of the day did not favour learningwith ladies, and she therefore shone a brilliant star, through her beauty and grace, in the circle of society, at Earlham. But she suffered much from delicacy of constitution, and was liable to severe nervous attacks. Physical indisposition was frequently her excuse for not at- tending the Friends' Meeting, where if obliged to go she would sit restless and uneasy. Gradually her heart was settling exclusively on the world-that treacherous shadow which pursues us in the light, and deserts us in the darkness ; the earnest devo- 10
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