Oh! your civility is the prettiest invention possible for dislike! Aubrey and I were inseparable, and we both gained by the intercourse.

I grew more gentle, and he more masculine; and, for my part, the kindness of his temper so softened the satire of mine that I learned at last to smile full as often as to sneer.
The Abbe had obtained a wonderful hold over Aubrey; he had made the poor boy think so much of the next world, that he had lost all relish for this.

He lived in a perpetual fear of offence: he was like a chemist of conscience, and weighed minutiae by scruples.

To play, to ride, to run, to laugh at a jest, or to banquet on a melon, were all sins to be atoned for; and I have found (as a penance for eating twenty-three cherries instead of eighteen) the penitent of fourteen standing, barefooted, in the coldest nights of winter, upon the hearthstones, almost utterly naked, and shivering like a leaf, beneath the mingled effect of frost and devotion.

At first I attempted to wrestle with this exceeding holiness, but finding my admonitions received with great distaste and some horror, I suffered my brother to be happy in his own way.