er-table
misadventures. This gentleman had made sacrifices for the cause of
Italy, in money, and, it was said, in blood. He knew the country and
loved the people. Brookfield remarked that there was just a foreign
tinge in his manner; and that his smile, though social to a degree
unknown to the run of English faces, did not give him all to you, and at
a second glance seemed plainly to say that he reserved much.

Adela fell to the lot of a hussar-captain: a celebrated beauty, not too
foolish. She thought it proper to punish him for his good looks till
propitiated by his good temper.

Nobody at Brookfield could remember afterwards who took Arabella down to
dinner; she declaring that she had forgotten. Her sisters, not unwilling
to see insignificance banished to annihilation, said that it must have
been nobody in person, and that he was a very useful guest when ladies
were engaged. Cornelia had a different lot. She leaned on the right
arm of the Member for Hillford, the statistical debate, Sir Twickenham
Pryme, who had twice before, as he ventured to remind her, enjoyed the
honour of conversing, if not of dining, with her. Nay, more, he revived
their topics. "And I have come round to your way of thinking as regards
hustings addresses," he said. "In nine cases out of ten--at least,
nineteen-twentieths of the House will furnish instances--one can only,
as you justly observed, appeal to the comprehension of the mob by
pledging oneself either to their appetites or passions, and it is better
plainly to state the case and put it to them in figures." Whether the
Baronet knew what he was saying is one matter: he knew what he meant.

Wilfrid was cavalier to Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, of Stornley, about
ten miles distant from Hillford; ninth daughter of a nobleman who passed
current as the Poor Marquis; he having been ruined when almost a boy in
Paris, by the late illustrious Lord Dartford. Her sisters had married
captains in the army and navy, lawyers, and parsons, impartially. Lady
Charlotte was nine-and-twenty years of age; with clear and telling
stone-blue eyes, firm but not unsweet lips, slightly hollowed cheeks,
and a jaw that certainly tended to be square. Her colour was healthy.
Walking or standing her figure was firmly poised. Her chief attraction
was a bell-toned laugh, fresh as a meadow spring. She had met Wilfrid
once in the hunting-field, so they soon had common ground to run on.

Mr. Powys made Emilia happy by tal