from which, she was pleased to say that no person of common sense could have expected a different issue. CHAPTER XXIII If Lady Pelham repined at the desertion of the Herberts, it was not because their departure consigned her to solitude. Never had Walbourne attracted so many visitors. Lady Pelham's beautiful niece drew thither all the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. The ladies followed them of course. The beauty and modesty of Laura charmed the men, while the women were half-inclined to think it an unfounded slander that such a good-natured, obliging, neat-handed creature studied mathematics, and read Tacitus in the original. Among the society to which she was introduced by Lady Pelham, and still more among that in which she mingled at Norwood, Laura met with persons of distinguished ability, rank, and politeness. In such company she rapidly acquired that ease of address which alone was wanting to make her manners as fascinating as they were correct. She grew accustomed to find herself the object of attention, and though no habit could reconcile her to the gaze of numbers, she gradually learnt to carry into these lesser occasions, the self-command which distinguished her in more important concerns. In real modesty and humility she improved every day; for it was the study of her life to improve in them. She retained all the timidity which is the fruit of genuine sensibility and quick perception of impropriety, while she lost that bashfulness which owes its growth to solitude and inexperience. Her personal charms, too, increased as they approached maturity. The symmetry of her form and features was indeed scarcely susceptible of improvement; but added gracefulness gave new attractions to her figure; while the soul lent its improving strength and brightness to animate her face with charms which mere symmetry knows not. With such qualifications Laura could not fail to excite admiration; yet never perhaps did beauty so seldom listen to its own praises. It was labour lost to compliment one who never rewarded the flatterer with one smile of gratified vanity, or repaid him with one complaisant departure from the simple truth. To the everyday nothings of the common herd she listened with a weariness which politeness could sometimes scarcely suppress. 'Oh would,' thought she, 'that civil nothings, as they are called, required no answer,--or that one obliging gentleman would undertake the labour of replying to the rest!' If addressed in the language of common-place compliment by one whom she respected, her look of mortification intelligibly said, 'Has then your penetration searched me deeper than I know myself, and detected in me the more than childish weakness of valuing myself on such distinctions as those you are praising?'