unanimously entreated that it might be cut to fit them.

"How foolish!" exclaimed Cecilia. "Don't you perceive that, if you win
it, you have nothing to do but to put the clasps a little further from
the edge? but if we get it, we can't make it larger."

"Very true," said they, "but you need not to have called us foolish,
Cecilia!"

It was by such hasty and unguarded expressions as these that Cecilia
offended; a slight difference in the manner makes a very material one in
the effect. Cecilia lost more love by general petulance than she could
gain by the greatest particular exertions.

How far she succeeded in curing herself of this defect, how far she
became deserving of the bracelet, and to whom the bracelet was given,
shall be told in the history of the first of June.




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