d to
recommendations, to choose none but the handsomest.

At the head of this new assembly appeared Miss Jennings and Miss Temple;
and indeed they so entirely eclipsed the other two, that we shall speak
of them only.

Miss Jennings, adorned with all the blooming treasures of youth, had the
fairest and brightest complexion that ever was seen: her hair was of a
most beauteous flaxen: there was something particularly lively and
animated in her countenance, which preserved her from that insipidity
which is frequently an attendant on a complexion so extremely fair. Her
mouth was not the smallest, but it was the handsomest mouth in the world.
Nature had endowed her with all those charms which cannot be expressed,
and the graces had given the finishing stroke to them. The turn of her
face was exquisitely fine, and her swelling neck was as fair and as
bright as her face. In a word, her person gave the idea of Aurora, or
the goddess of the spring, "such as youthful poets fancy when they love."
But as it would have been unjust that a single person should have
engrossed all the treasures of beauty without any defect, there was
something wanting in her hands and arms to render them worthy of the
rest: her nose was not the most elegant, and her eyes gave some relief,
whilst her mouth and her other charms pierced the heart with a thousand
darts.

With this amiable person she was full of wit and sprightliness, and all
her actions and motions were unaffected and easy: her conversation was
bewitching, when she had a mind to please; piercing and delicate when
disposed to raillery; but as her imagination was subject to flights,
and as she began to speak frequently before she had done thinking, her
expressions did not always convey what she wished; sometimes exceeding,
and at others falling short of her ideas.

Miss Temple, nearly of the same age, was brown compared with the other:
she had a good shape, fine teeth, languishing, eyes, a fresh complexion,
an agreeable smile, and a lively air. Such was the outward form; but it
would be difficult to describe the rest; for she was simple and vain,
credulous and suspicious, coquettish and prudent, very self-sufficient
and very silly.

As soon as these new stars appeared at the duchess's court, all eyes were
fixed upon them, and every one formed some design upon one or other of
them, some with honourable, and others with dishonest intentions. Miss
Jennings soon distinguished herself, and le