"Yes, and so cheap too," replied her husband. "But I wonder you should like this sort of light, Fanny, for you are far removed yet from that period of life when _le petit jour_ is so favourable to beauty: you are still young enough to bear the searching light of broad-eyed day, and so I trust are all the ladies present; though I must own a _veil_ is always a suspicious circumstance," he added, coming up to me. "Yes, yes," said his wife, "I always suspect a veil is worn to conceal something." "But it may be worn in mercy," he added; "and perhaps it is so here, if I may judge of what is hidden by what is shown: if I may form an opinion indeed from that hand and arm, on which youth and beauty are so legibly written, I--" Here, confused and almost provoked, I drew on my gloves; and Mrs. Ridley, who loved fun, whispered her husband, "Do not go on; she is quite ugly, scarred with the confluent small-pox, blear-eyed, and hideous: you will be surprised when you see her face." She then begged to speak to me; and as I walked across the room in which we sat to join her in the next, I saw Ridley whisper Pendarves. "May be so," he replied: "but her figure and form are almost the finest I ever saw." "And yet I am so very tall," said I to myself with a joy that vibrated through my frame. The conversation now became general; and on a lady's being mentioned who had married a second husband before the first had been dead quite a year, Pendarves, to my consternation, began a violent philippic against women, declaring that scarcely one of us was capable of a persevering attachment; that the best and dearest of husbands might be forgotten in six months; and that those men only could expect to be happy who laid their plans for happiness independently of woman's love. It is strange, but true, that the indignation which this speech excited in me enabled me to conquer at once the agitation which had hitherto kept me silent. Coming hastily forward, I exclaimed, while he rose respectfully, "Is it for you, Mr. Seymour Pendarves, to hold such language as this? Have you forgotten Lady Helen, your own blessed mother, and her friend and yours?" So saying, while he stood confounded, self-judged, and full of wonder, for the voice and manner were mine, but the height and figure were no longer so,--I left the room; and a violent burst of tears relieved my oppressed heart. Mrs. Ridley then rang for a candle and considerately left me to myself. Oh! the flutter of that moment when I re-entered the drawing-room, which I found brilliantly lighted up! Seymour, who had I found now doubted, and now believed, the evidence of his ears in opposition to that of his sight, was standing at the window; but he turned hastily round at my entrance, and our eyes instantly met.