reat for a few months by many of the fashionable world.

Although Virginia never mentioned her surmises directly, I perceived, by
her occasional remarks, that she had latterly become aware of what were
my mother's views; indeed, how could she do otherwise, when my mother
would refuse her lodgings one day to a gentleman because he was married,
and let them the next time merely because he was a single man? And that
she was disgusted with my mother's conduct I was convinced; at the same
time, she certainly kept her thoughts to herself, merely telling me how
very uncomfortable it was to have lodgers, and to be obliged to go into
their rooms with messages from my mother. There was an Honourable Mr
---, I really forget his name--indeed, I should not have mentioned him,
except that he was the introduction of another personage--who was
several months in my mother's house, a harmless old bachelor. How old
he was I cannot say, as he wore a very youthful wig and also false
whiskers, but I should think about sixty. He was a great admirer of the
fine arts, and a still greater admirer of his own performances in
painting. He took lessons twice a day from two different masters, who
came from London, and he was at it from morning to night. He came down
to Greenwich, as he said, to study _tints_, and get up his colouring. I
cannot say I thought his performances very good, but perhaps I was not a
judge. My mother, who would, I believe, have sacrificed my sister to an
ourang outang, provided he was an Honourable, took every opportunity of
sending Virginia in to him, that he might study the delicate tints on
her cheeks; but it would not do, even if Virginia had been a party to
it. He looked at his palette instead of her pretty mouth, and his
camel-hair pencils attracted his attention more than her pencilled
eyebrows. He was wrapt up in his art, and overlooked the prettiest
piece of nature in the world; and Virginia, seeing this to be the case,
had no longer any objection to go into his room. But this gentleman had
a nephew, a very different sort of a personage, a young heir to a
marquisate, who used to pay attention to his bachelor uncle by paying
him visits, at first because he was ordered so to do, and after once or
twice because he had seen Virginia, and was struck with her appearance.
He was a good-looking young man, about nineteen? but not very bright--
indeed, I ought to say very silly, although at the same time not at all
b