"This is pretty, very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were thus sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting-almost forgetting what it was before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!" And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: "If any one faculty of our nature may be called _more_ wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out."
Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she thought must interest.

"This is very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow, never thought of as capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting what it was before. How very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind! If any faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. It is sometimes so retentive, so obedient; at others, so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!"
Miss Crawford, untouched, had nothing to say; and Fanny returned to what she thought must interest.
