When it was said, therefore, that an assembly composed as the present differed not in its appearance from others passing under the same generic name, it was premised to be only under the impression of a first view;--a more intimate acquaintance with many of its laws and practices, so opposed to received customs in the world, could not in the end fail to astonish! And first the observer (the moral observer is meant) would have been struck by the discovery, that the young and beautiful in this magic circle were all married women, and that the person who individually (for the number was rarely more than singular) paid his assiduous court, leant over the chair, and whispered into the ear of the fair whom he selected or was selected by, was no aspirant to her hand in marriage, no relative--neither was he her husband--but a member of the privileged society, which was alone sufficient. His astonishment would have been yet stronger on discovering that for a season, till mutual convenience, or disagreement dissolved their familiar acquaintance, each party, similarly paired, invariably met, conversed, and retired at the same time, when the circle broke up, or when they quitted it, apparently on the same footing of intimacy which the most holy ties could have sanctioned; while those whom such a tie actually bound to them were themselves pursuing a similar career. Had the conversation which for the most part occupied this portion of the _société choisie_ been reported, or reached the ear, it is possible a considerate mind might have thought, notwithstanding the singularity of a system which excluded the unmarried from scenes of amusement, that it was well they formed no portion of it; but still, in an escape from its early influence, enjoyed the opportunity of attaining to a degree of moral principle, and feminine decorum, which must otherwise have been swept away in the general license. This, however, can unfortunately be said only of the one sex--the unmarried in the other, provided their attainments were of the kind to authorize admission, were not on the excluded list; and the young, well-principled, and ingenuous perhaps at their outset, might, in the examples constantly before them, have found incentive to conduct, which at a future day they would discover to have been the great bane and poison of their existence.--Of these the person who entered Lady Tilney's apartments when the coterie had nearly assembled, and who was new to most of them, offered an instance, for whom the liveliest fears with justice might have been entertained.