ho strive with all their might to
talk most delightfully, that the charms of their conversation may efface
the marks of the crows' feet; but 'all these I passen by, and nameless
numbers moe.' And now comes the Hon. Mrs. Downe Wright, a person of
considerable shrewdness and penetration--vulgar, but unaffected. There
is no politeness, no gentleness in her heart; but she possesses some
warmth, much honesty, and great hospitality. She has acquired the
character of being--oh, odious thing!--a clever woman! There are two
descriptions of clever women, observe; the one is endowed with corporeal
cleverness--the other with mental; and I don't know which of the two is
the greater nuisance to society; the one torments you with her
management--the other with her smart sayings; the one is for ever
rattling her bunch of keys in your ears--the other electrifies you with
the shock of her wit; and both talk _so_ much and _so _loud, and are
such egotists, that I rather think a clever woman is even a greater term
of reproach than a good creature. But to return to that clever woman Mrs.
Downe Wright: she is a widow, left with the management of an only son--a
commonplace, weak young man. No one, I believe, is more sensible of his
mental deficiencies than his mother; but she knows that a man of fortune
is, in the eyes of the many, a man of consequence; and she therefore
wisely talks of it as his chief characteristic. To keep him in good
company, and get him well married, is all her aim; and this, she thinks,
will not be difficult, as he is very handsome-possesses an estate of ten
thousand a year--and succeeds to some Scotch Lord Something's
title--there's for you, Mary! She once had views of Adelaide, but
Adelaide met the advances with so much scorn that Mrs. Downe Wright
declared she was thankful she had shown the cloven foot in time, for
that she never would have done for a wife to her William. Now you are
the very thing to suit, for you have no cloven feet to show."

"Or at least you are not so quick-sighted as Mrs. Downe Wright. You
have not spied them yet, it seems," said Mary, with a smile.

"Oh, as to that, if you had them, I should defy you, or anyone, to hide
them from me. When I reflect upon the characters of most of my
acquaintances, I sometimes think nature has formed my optics only to see
disagreeables."

"That must be a still more painful faculty of vision than even the
second-sight," said Mary; "but I should think it depended