'Is Mr Maynard a libertine?' said Adeline gravely: and Glenmurray, afraid of wounding her feelings by entering into a further explanation, changed the subject, and again requested her consent to leave Lisbon. 'I have often told you,' said Adeline sighing, 'that my will is yours; and if you will give strict orders to have letters sent after us to the towns that we shall stop at, I am ready to set off immediately.' Glenmurray then gave his orders; wrote a letter explaining his situation to Maynard, and in an hour they were on their journey to France. CHAPTER XII In the meanwhile Mr Maynard, Miss Maynard, and Mrs Wallington his widowed sister, were impatiently expecting Glenmurray's answer, and earnestly hoping to see him and his lovely companion,--but from different motives. Maynard was impatient to see Adeline because he really admired her; his sisters, because they hoped to find her unworthy of such violent admiration. Their vanity had been piqued, and their envy excited, by the extravagant praises of their brother; and they had interrupted him by the first questions which all women ask on such occasions,--'Is she pretty?' And he answered, 'Very pretty.' 'Is she tall?' 'Very tall, taller than I am.' 'I hate tall women,' replied Miss Maynard (a little round girl of nineteen). 'Is she fair?' 'Exquisitely fair.' 'I like brown women,' cried the widow: 'fair people always look silly.' 'But Mrs Glenmurray's eyes are hazel, and her eyelashes long and dark.' 'Hazel eyes are always bold-looking,' cried Miss Maynard. 'Not Mrs Glenmurray's; for her expression is the most pure and ingenuous that I ever saw. Some girls, indecent in their dress, and very licentious in their manner, passed us as we sat on the walk; and the comments which I made on them provoked from Mrs Glenmurray some remarks on the behaviour and dress of women; and, as she commented on the disgusting expression of vice in women, and the charm of modest dignity both in dress and manners, her own dress, manners, and expression, were such an admirable comment on her words, and she shone so brightly, if I may use the expression, in the graceful awfulness of virtue, that I gazed with delight, and somewhat of apprehension lest this fair perfection should suddenly take flight to her native skies, toward which her fine eyes were occasionally turned.' 'Bless me! if our brother is not quite poetical! This prodigy has inspired him,' replied the widow with a sneer. 'For my part, I hate prodigies,' said Miss Maynard: 'I feel myself unworthy to associate with them.'