“Yes: she was a mighty fine dancer, and had good legs enough: Mrs. Stanhope got poor Valleton to fight a duel about her place in a country dance, and then he was so pleased with himself for his prowess, that he married the girl.” Belinda made an effort to change her seat, but she was encompassed so that she could not retreat. “As to Jenny Mason, the fifth of the _nieces_,” continued the witty gentleman, “she was as brown as mahogany, and had neither eyes, nose, mouth, nor legs: what Mrs. Stanhope could do with her I often wondered; but she took courage, _rouged_ her up, set her a going as a _dasher_, and she dashed herself into Tom Levit’s curricle, and Tom couldn’t get her out again till she was the honourable Mrs. Levit: she then took the reins into her own hands, and I hear she’s driving him and herself _the road to ruin_ as fast as they can gallop. As for this Belinda Portman, ‘twas a good hit to send her to Lady Delacour’s; but, I take it she hangs upon hand; for last winter, when I was at Bath, she was hawked about every where, and the aunt was puffing her with might and main. You heard of nothing, wherever you went, but of Belinda Portman, and Belinda Portman’s accomplishments: Belinda Portman, and her accomplishments, I’ll swear, were as well advertised as Packwood’s razor strops.” “Mrs. Stanhope overdid the business, I think,” resumed the gentleman who began the conversation: “girls brought to the hammer this way don’t go off well. It’s true, Christie himself is no match for dame Stanhope. Many of my acquaintance were tempted to go and look at the premises, but not one, you may be sure, had a thought of becoming a tenant for life.” “That’s an honour reserved for you, Clarence Hervey,” said another, tapping him upon the shoulder.--“Give ye joy, Hervey; give ye joy!” “Me!” said Clarence, starting. “I’ll be hanged if he didn’t change colour,” said his facetious companion; and all the young men again joined in a laugh. “Laugh on, my merry men all!” cried Clarence; “but the devil’s in it if I don’t know my own mind better than any of you. You don’t imagine I go to Lady Delacour’s to look for a _wife?_--Belinda Portman’s a good pretty girl, but what then? Do you think I’m an idiot?--do you think I could be taken in by one of the Stanhope school? Do you think I don’t see as plainly as any of you that Belinda Portman’s a composition of art and affectation?” “Hush--not so loud, Clarence; here she comes,” said his companion. “The comic muse, is not she--?” Lady Delacour, at this moment, came lightly tripping towards them, and addressing herself, in the character of the comic muse, to Hervey, exclaimed, “Hervey! _my_ Hervey! most favoured of my votaries, why do you forsake me? ‘Why mourns my friend, why weeps his downcast eye? That eye where mirth and fancy used to shine.’ Though you have lost your serpent’s form, yet you may please any of the fair daughters of Eve in your own.”