“Well, I know it’s very wrong;—but never mind! I mean to be good some time—only don’t preach now, there’s a good creature. I haven’t told you half yet. Let me see. Oh! I was going to tell you how many unmistakeable admirers I had:—Sir Thomas Ashby was one,—Sir Hugh Meltham and Sir Broadley Wilson are old codgers, only fit companions for papa and mamma. Sir Thomas is young, rich, and gay; but an ugly beast, nevertheless: however, mamma says I should not mind that after a few months’ acquaintance. Then, there was Henry Meltham, Sir Hugh’s younger son; rather good-looking, and a pleasant fellow to flirt with: but _being_ a younger son, that is all he is good for; then there was young Mr. Green, rich enough, but of no family, and a great stupid fellow, a mere country booby! and then, our good rector, Mr. Hatfield: an _humble_ admirer he ought to consider himself; but I fear he has forgotten to number humility among his stock of Christian virtues.” “Was Mr. Hatfield at the ball?” “Yes, to be sure. Did you think he was too good to go?” “I thought be might consider it unclerical.” “By no means. He did not profane his cloth by dancing; but it was with difficulty he could refrain, poor man: he looked as if he were dying to ask my hand just for _one_ set; and—oh! by-the-by—he’s got a new curate: that seedy old fellow Mr. Bligh has got his long-wished-for living at last, and is gone.” “And what is the new one like?” “Oh, _such_ a beast! Weston his name is. I can give you his description in three words—an insensate, ugly, stupid blockhead. That’s four, but no matter—enough of _him_ now.” Then she returned to the ball, and gave me a further account of her deportment there, and at the several parties she had since attended; and further particulars respecting Sir Thomas Ashby and Messrs. Meltham, Green, and Hatfield, and the ineffaceable impression she had wrought upon each of them. “Well, which of the four do you like best?” said I, suppressing my third or fourth yawn. “I detest them all!” replied she, shaking her bright ringlets in vivacious scorn. “That means, I suppose, ‘I like them all’—but which most?” “No, I really detest them all; but Harry Meltham is the handsomest and most amusing, and Mr. Hatfield the cleverest, Sir Thomas the wickedest, and Mr. Green the most stupid. But the one I’m to have, I suppose, if I’m doomed to have any of them, is Sir Thomas Ashby.” “Surely not, if he’s so wicked, and if you dislike him?”