Laura Lovel, though new to the world, had sufficient good sense and penetration to perceive almost immediately, that Miss Frampton was a woman of much vanity and pretension, and that she was in the habit of talking with great exaggeration; and in a short time she more than suspected that many of her assertions were arrant falsehoods--a fact that was well known to all those numerous persons that Miss Frampton called her _friends_. Tea was now brought in, and Miss Frampton took occasion to relate in what manner she had discovered that the famous silver urn of that charming family, the Sam Kettlethorps, was, in reality, only plated--that her particular favourites, the Joe Sowerbys, showed such bad taste at their great terrapin supper, as to have green hock-glasses for the champagne; and that those delightful people, the Bob Skutterbys, the first time they attempted the new style of heaters at a venison dinner, had them filled with spirits of turpentine, instead of spirits of wine. Next morning, Miss Frampton did not appear at the breakfast-table, but had her first meal carried into her room, and Augusta breakfasted with her. Between them Laura Lovel was discussed at full length, and their conclusion was, that she had not a single good feature--that her complexion was nothing, her figure nothing, and her dress worse than nothing. "I don't suppose," said Augusta, "that her father has given her much money to bring to town with her." "To be sure he has not," replied Miss Frampton, "if he is only a poor country clergyman. I think it was in very bad taste for him to let her come at all." "Well," said Augusta, "we must take her a shopping this morning, and try to get her fitted out, so as to make a decent appearance at Nahant, as we are going thither in a few days." "Then I have come just in the right time," said Miss Frampton. "Nahant is the very place I wish to visit--my sweet friend Mrs. Dick Pewsey has given me such an account of it. She says there is considerable style there. She passed a week at Nahant when she came to Boston last summer." "Oh! I remember her," cried Augusta. "She was a mountain of blonde lace." "Yes," observed Miss Frampton, "and not an inch of that blonde has yet been paid for, or ever will be; I know it from good authority."