I did not wait for a second intimation, but bounded down stairs, and I was already seated in the barouche, with Miss Arnold before my deliberate beau made his appearance. I was too full of expectation to talk; and we had proceeded for some time in silence, when I was awakened from a dream of triumph by Mr Maitland's saying, and, as I thought, with a sigh, 'What a pleasing woman is Miss Mortimer! That feminine simplicity and sweetness make the merest commonplace delightful!' I suppose it was my vanity grasping at a monopoly of praise which made me feel myself teazed by this encomium; and I pettishly answered, 'That it was a pity Miss Mortimer did not hear this compliment, for she might keep it to herself, since she at least was no _child_.' 'Within these few years,' said Mr Maitland, 'she was a very enchanting woman.' 'Indeed!' exclaimed I, more and more out of humour at the unusual warmth of his expressions, 'Miss Mortimer has no wit, and she has never been pretty.' 'True,' returned Mr Maitland, 'but I dislike wits. I am not even fond of beauties. It is in bad taste for a woman to "flash on the startled eye." Miss Mortimer did not burst on us like a meteor,--she stole on us like the dawn, cheering and delightful, not dazzling.' This speech seemed so manifest an attack upon me who dealt with a certain fearless repartee that passed for wit, and who was already a beauty by profession, that my eyes filled with tears of mortification. Of what use is beauty, thought I, if it be thus despised by men of sense, and draw the gaze only of silly boys? Yet men of sense have felt its power; and when people have, like Mr Maitland, outlived human feelings, they should leave the world, and not stay to damp the pleasures of the young and the happy. The next moment, however, sparkling eyes and skins of alabaster recovered their full value in my estimation, when, as we pressed into Lady ----'s crowded rooms, a hundred whispers met my ear of 'Lovely!'--'Charming!' and 'Devilish handsome!' My buoyant spirits rose again, and I looked up to take a triumphant survey of my admirers. Yet, when I met the universal gaze which was attracted by the splendour of my dress, or the novelty of my appearance, nature for a moment stirred in me; and though I had indignantly turned from Mr Maitland, and accepted the devoirs of a more obsequious attendant, I now instinctively caught his arm, and shrunk awkwardly behind him.