"But, mamma, I don't want to marry; I want to dance, and look as handsomely-dressed as Anna Maria did at the assize-ball." "Nonsense, Isabel! you are as pertinacious as your father, and just as blind. Wait till your sister is married, and she will introduce you. Perhaps next year may produce wonders; your sister is exceedingly admired." "So she _may_ be, while I am out. I shall not interfere with her, you know, for I shall be dancing all the time." "I cannot argue with such a limited intellect as you appear to possess, Isabel. I have made my arrangements, and cannot break through them. You will appear when your sister is Mrs. Pynsent. Tom Pynsent was very attentive to Anna Maria at the ball." "Then I'll beg Tom Pynsent to make haste, I declare!" exclaimed Isabel. "Do not be vulgar and unladylike, Isabel, and promise me you will make no coarse allusions to Tom Pynsent. I should be extremely shocked at such a line of conduct. I do not absolutely say Anna Maria _will_ secure Tom, but I trust and hope such an event is in fruition; and if so, you shall immediately be brought forward. Two girls out at once is folly." Isabel was nothing daunted by her mother's objection; and she returned openly and constantly to the attack, which soon exhausted the few efficient reasons urged by her antagonist. An incident at once decided the propriety of stopping the mouth of an alarming witness, and put an end to further discussion. Isabel was allowed to descend into the drawing-room, after Anna Maria's début, as Lady Wetheral observed it would prove a judicious step towards giving her manner its first polish; and the transition from the nursery to the trials of society would be less felt by a gradual initiation into its forms. Isabel was not to converse, or offer an opinion, upon any subject; she was not in any wise to infringe upon her sister's prerogative, or draw attention towards herself; but she was to observe silently the proprieties of life--to learn by close attention the observances, the graceful bend of reception, the easy flow of local conversation, and the thousand agreeable nothings comprised in receiving company. Upon all this was Isabel to meditate; but no silly compliment offered by a young man was to be understood or replied to by herself; no gracious invitation was to be accepted, no remark whatsoever was to induce her to put herself forward. Upon these hard terms, Isabel was received in her mother's apartments; and she endured the sight of her "senior by only one year," receiving the crowds which frequented Wetheral Castle, dressed with elegance, admired, courted, and surrounded with flattery in all its proteus forms.