"Then ask me nothing about her, ma'am, if you please," replied the recluse. "But it is near two years, Miss Compton, since you saw her, and she is wonderfully improved in that time," said Mrs. Wilmot.... "Yet I own I should have thought that even then, two years ago, when you did see her, that you must have found her a very charming girl, full of sweetness and intelligence, and with a face...." "We had better say no more about her, if you please, Mrs. Wilmot," tartly interrupted the recluse.... "I dare say you made the best you could of her, and it is no fault of yours that old Wisett's great grand-daughter should be a Wisett; ... but I hate the very sight of her, as I do, and have done, and ever shall do, that of all their kin and kind ... so it is no good to talk of it...." "The sight of her!..." reiterated the astonished Mrs. Wilmot. "Why, my dear Miss Compton, she is reckoned by every one that sees her to be one of the loveliest creatures that nature ever formed.... If her timid, artless manners, do not please you, it is unfortunate; but that you should not think her beautiful, is impossible." "I beg your pardon, ma'am ... I should not care a straw for the manners of a child, for I know that time and care might change them, ... but it is her person that I can't endure; ... there is no disputing about taste, you know. I should not have thought, indeed, that she was quite the style for you to admire so violently; ... but, of course, that is nothing to me.... I know that the look of her eyes, and the colour of her cheeks, is exactly what I think the most detestable; ... there is no right or wrong in the matter ... it is all fancy, and the sight of her makes me sick.... Pray, ma'am, say no more about her." There was but one way in which Mrs. Wilmot could comprehend this extraordinary antipathy to what was so little calculated to inspire it, and this was by supposing that Miss Compton's personal deformity rendered the sight of beauty painful to her; an interpretation, indeed, as far as possible from the truth, for the little spinster was peculiarly sensible to beauty of form and expression wherever she found it; but it was the only explanation that suggested itself; and with mingled feelings of pity and contempt, Mrs. Wilmot replied,--"There may be no right or wrong, Miss Compton, in a judgment passed on external appearance only, for it may, as you observe, be purely a matter of taste; but surely it must be otherwise of an aversion conceived against a near relative whose amiable disposition, faultless conduct, and brilliant talents, justly entitle her to the love, esteem, and admiration of the whole world.... This is not merely a matter of taste, and in this there may be much wrong."