"You are quite delightful, Comtesse, and ought to have every thing your own way; so good bye, if you _must_ go. I will remember to see Prince Luttermanne; I will not let the matter rest--adieu," and they kissed each other's cheeks on both sides, "adieu!"--"You will not let de matter rest--no, I am sure you will not--nor any oder ting or person," thought the Comtesse, as she glided out of the room. "How frightfully red her nose is become," observed Lady Tilney, soliloquizing, as she looked at her own smooth cream-coloured skin in the glass. CHAPTER II. CHARACTERISTICS. Of Lady Tilney's character a hasty outline has been attempted in the preceding chapter; falling short, however, as it is confessed every attempt must do, to delineate all its varied features. Something, however, may have been gathered, by viewing her in the midst of the group assembled in her boudoir; and the portraiture will be rendered still more distinct, as the character of her associates are further developed. Of Lady Tilney herself it may be said, that that real or pretended contempt of rank which she affected to entertain, arose from the circumstances of her own parentage, which, on her mother's side at least, was not noble; to the same cause, also, may perhaps be attributed her anxious irritability, ill concealed under a forced gaiety, lest the respect and homage which she considered to be her due, should not be paid her. There was a restlessness in her assumed tranquillity, wholly unlike the easy natural languor of her friend Lady Ellersby, to which she would gladly have attained, and which it was always the object of her ambition to imitate; but she never reached that perfectibility of _insouciance_, which marks a superiority of birth and station. Notwithstanding the part which she consequently was obliged to play, there was still a good deal of nature in her composition; much more than in that of the person whose demeanour she envied;--and had not her character been influenced by a life of dissipation, she seemed designed to have passed through existence diffusing usefulness and cheerfulness around her. Much might be said in extenuation of Lady Tilney's faults and follies, courted and caressed as she was; as indeed there is ever much indulgence to be extended to all who, in situations of power and of temptation (however many their foibles) remain free from positive vice. The voice of censure should be guarded therefore in its condemnation; remembering that the inability to do wrong, or the want of allurement to yield to it, are often the sole preservatives against similar errors.