In former years Lady Somerset collected all the virtue and talent in the country around her table, and it was now found that they were not brought there on a vain errand. From them Miss Beaufort gathered her best lessons in conduct and taste, and from them her earliest perceptions of friendship. Mary was the beloved pupil and respected friend of the brightest characters in England; and though some of them were men who had not passed the age of forty, she never had been in love, nor had she mistaken the nature of her esteem so far as to call it by that name. Hence she was neither afraid nor ashamed to acknowledge a correspondence she knew to be her highest distinction. But had the frank and innocent Mary exhibited half the like attentions which she paid to these men in one hour to the common class of young men through the course of a month, they would have declared that the poor girl was over head and ears in love with them, and have pitied what they would have justly denominated her folly. Foolish must that woman be who would sacrifice the most precious gift in her possession--her heart--to the superficial graces or empty blandishments of a self-idolized coxcomb! Such a being was not Mary Beaufort; and on these principles she contemplated the extraordinary fine qualities she saw in the exiled Thaddeus with an interest honorable to her penetration and her heart. When Miss Egerton called with Lady Sara Ross to take Miss Beaufort to the Haymarket, Mary was not displeased at seeing Mr. Constantine step out of the carnage to hand her in. During their drive, Miss Egerton informed her that Lady Tinemouth had been suddenly seized with a headache, but that Lady Sara had kindly undertaken to be their chaperon, and had promised to return with them to sup in Grosvenor Place. Lady Sara had never seen Mary, though she had frequently heard of her beauty and vast fortune. This last qualification her ladyship hoped might have given an unmerited _éclat_ to the first; therefore when she saw in Miss Beaufort the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld, nothing could equal her surprise and vexation. The happy lustre that beamed in the fine eyes of Mary shone like a vivifying influence around her; a bright glow animated her cheek, whilst a pleasure for which she did not seek to account bounded at her heart, and modulated every tone of her voice to sweetness and enchantment. "Syren!" thought Lady Sara, withdrawing her large dark eyes from her face, and turning them full of dissolving languor upon Thaddeus; "here are all thy charms directed!" then drawing a sigh, so deep that it made her neighbor start, she fixed her eyes on her fan, and never looked up again until they had reached the playhouse. The curtain was raised as the little party seated themselves in the box. "Can anybody tell me what the play is?" asked Lady Sara. "I never thought of inquiring," replied Sophia.