Here may be closed the catalogue of their moral possessions. Of their outward shew of manner and courtesy, where so much in a _soi-disant_ empire of ton might be expected, perhaps, there was still less to praise: a _brusquerie_ of address took place of polished breeding, where intimacy permitted any address at all; and where none was allowable, an insolent carelessness marked the behaviour, instead of that polite courtesy which is ever the distinguishing mark of really good manners. Lady Tilney, had she not stood on the 'vantage ground of _ton_, might have been called vulgar: the loud and incessant talking, the abrupt and supercilious glance and motion, had it not been backed by title and an assumed superiority, would have been designated by a very different name from that under which her manners passed current; and even as it was, they sometimes received a reproof which, however affectedly scorned, was deeply felt. An instance of this occurred on the occasion of her receiving the homage of a distinguished foreigner; when, in the intoxication of the moment's vanity, Lady Tilney forgot the respect due to one of exalted station, rudely turning her back, and brushing past him in the dance, a disregard of etiquette which he whose manners are all elegance and condescension, would never in his station have shewn to the meanest of his subjects, and whose sense of delicacy and propriety is so acute, that wherever female manners are concerned, none could better know how to condemn whatever derogated in the slightest degree from them. It was to the displeasure incurred by this circumstance, and to the loss of favour which all who have ever lived in its sunshine cannot fail to lament when withdrawn, that allusion was made, in speaking of Lady Tilney's contempt of sovereigns and courts. Here was to be found one bad effect of a system which, while false in every sense, arrogated to itself perfection in all. There was no immorality to rebuke in this instance of Lady Tilney's conduct; but it proceeded from a source, which if not in her, in others at least, might be productive of serious consequences; namely, from a contempt of established rules and received opinions; and if, in the midst of this arrogance there was a redeeming spirit of occasional kindness,--a smile which took the heart captive for the moment, and gave promise of better things,--it only caused a regret that the good which was there should be thus choaked by the noxious weeds of vanity.