she was
beautiful; but I cannot help feeling that she possesses an uncommon
union of symmetry, brilliancy, and grace. Her address to me was so
gentle, frank, and even affectionate, that, if I had not known how much
she has always disliked me for marrying Mr. Vernon, and that we had
never met before, I should have imagined her an attached friend. One
is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with coquetry, and to
expect that an impudent address will naturally attend an impudent mind;
at least I was myself prepared for an improper degree of confidence in
Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and her voice and
manner winningly mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this but deceit?
Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever and agreeable, has
all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, and talks
very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used, I
believe, to make black appear white. She has already almost persuaded me
of her being warmly attached to her daughter, though I have been so long
convinced to the contrary. She speaks of her with so much tenderness and
anxiety, lamenting so bitterly the neglect of her education, which she
represents however as wholly unavoidable, that I am forced to recollect
how many successive springs her ladyship spent in town, while her
daughter was left in Staffordshire to the care of servants, or a
governess very little better, to prevent my believing what she says.

If her manners have so great an influence on my resentful heart, you
may judge how much more strongly they operate on Mr. Vernon's generous
temper. I wish I could be as well satisfied as he is, that it was really
her choice to leave Langford for Churchhill; and if she had not stayed
there for months before she discovered that her friend's manner of
living did not suit her situation or feelings, I might have believed
that concern for the loss of such a husband as Mr. Vernon, to whom her
own behaviour was far from unexceptionable, might for a time make her
wish for retirement. But I cannot forget the length of her visit to the
Mainwarings, and when I reflect on the different mode of life which she
led with them from that to which she must now submit, I can only suppose
that the wish of establishing her reputation by following though late
the path of propriety, occasioned her removal from a family where she
must in reality have been particularly happy. Your frie