Lady N---- was indifferent to me, and how could I hang up her curtains in my memory? By what could they hold? Do you not know, Margaret ... all the fine things that I could say, and that quartos have said before me, about the association of ideas and sensations, &c.? Those we love impart to uninteresting objects the power of pleasing, as the magnet can communicate to inert metal its attractive influence. Till Mr. L---- was Leonora’s lover I never liked him much. I do not mean to call him inert. I always knew that he had many excellent qualities; but there was nothing in his temper peculiarly agreeable to me, and there was something in his character that I did not thoroughly understand; yet, since he is become Leonora’s husband, I find my understanding much improved, and I dare say it will soon be so far enlarged, that I shall comprehend him perfectly. Leonora has almost persuaded me to like Lady Olivia. Not to laugh at her would be impossible. I wish you could see the way in which we go on together. Our first setting out would have diverted you. Enter Lady Olivia breathless, with an air of theatric expectation--advances to embrace Helen, who is laughing with Leonora--her back turned towards the side of the stage at which Olivia enters--Olivia pauses suddenly, and measures Helen _with a long look_. What passes in Lady Olivia’s mind at this moment I do not know, but I guess that she was disappointed woefully by my appearance. After some time she was recovered, by Leonora’s assistance, from her reverie, and presently began to admire my vivacity, and to find out that I was Clarissa’s Miss Howe--no, I was Lady G.--no, I was Heloise’s Clara: but I, choosing to be myself, and insisting upon being an _original_, sunk again visibly and rapidly in Olivia’s opinion, till I was in imminent danger of being _nobody_, Leonora again kindly interposed to save me from annihilation; and after an interval of an hour or two dedicated to letter-writing, Lady Olivia returned and seated herself beside me, resolved to decide what manner of woman I was. Certain novels are the touchstones of feeling and _intellect_ with certain ladies. Unluckily I was not well read in these; and in the questions put to me from these sentimental statute-books, I gave strange judgments, often for the husband or parents against the heroine. I did not even admit the plea of destiny, irresistible passion, or _entraînement_, as in all cases sufficient excuse for all errors and crimes. Moreover, I excited astonishment by calling things by obsolete names. I called a married woman’s having a lover _a crime_! Then I was no judge of virtues, for I thought a wife’s making an intimate friend of her husband’s mistress was scandalous and mean; but this I was told is the height of delicacy and generosity. I could not perceive the propriety of a man’s liking two women at the same time, or a woman’s having a platonic attachment for half a dozen lovers: and I owned that