“Malice, to be hated, needs but to be seen, but now when it is elegantly dressed we look upon it without shame or consciousness of evil; we grow to doat upon it--so entertaining, so graceful, so refined. When vice loses half its grossness, it loses all its deformity. Humanity used to be talked of when our friends were torn to pieces, but now there is such a philosophical perfume thrown over the whole operation, that we are irresistibly attracted. How much we owe to such men as Mr. Churchill, who make us feel detraction virtue!” He bowed low as Lady Davenant, summoned by her lord, left the room, and there he stood as one condemned but not penitent. “If I have not been well sentenced,” said he, as the door closed, “and made ‘_to feel detraction virtue_!’--But since Lady Cecilia cannot help smiling at that, I am acquitted, and encouraged to sin again the first opportunity. But Lady Davenant shall not be by, nor Lord Davenant either.” Lady Cecilia sat down to write a note, and Mr. Churchill walked round the room in a course of critical observation on the pictures, of which, as of every thing else, he was a supreme judge. At last he put his eye and his glass down to something which singularly attracted his attention on one of the marble tables. “Pretty!” said Lady Cecilia, “pretty are not they?--though one’s so tired of them every where now--those doves!” “Doves!” said Churchill, “what I am admiring are gloves, are not they, Miss Stanley?” said he, pointing to an old pair of gloves, which, much wrinkled and squeezed together, lay on the beautiful marble in rather an unsightly lump. “Poor Doctor V------,” cried Helen to Cecilia; “that poor Doctor V-------is as absent as ever! he is gone, and has forgotten his gloves!” “Absent! oh, as ever!” said Lady Cecilia, going on with her note, “the most absent man alive.” “Too much of that sort of thing I think there is in Doctor V-------,” pursued Churchill: “a touch of absence of mind, giving the idea of high abstraction, becomes a learned man well enough; but then it should only be slight, as a _soupçon_ of rouge, which may become a pretty woman; all depends on the measure, the taste, with which these things are managed--put on.” “There is nothing managed, nothing _put on_ in Doctor V------,” cried Helen, eagerly, her colour rising; “it is all perfectly sincere, true in him, whatever it be.” Beauclerc put down his book. “All perfectly true! You really think so, Miss Stanley?” said Churchill, smiling, and looking superior down. “I do, indeed,” cried Helen. “Charming--so young! How I do love that freshness of mind!” “Impertinent fellow! I could knock him down, felt Beauclerc. “And you think all Doctor V------‘s humility true?” said Churchill. “Yes, perfectly!” said Helen; “but I do not wonder you are surprised at it, Mr. Churchill.” She meant no _malice_, though for a moment he thought she did; and he winced under Beauclerc’s smile.