ite, on repete, on est si touchee de la mort de son mari, qu'on
n'en oublie pas la moindre circonstance."

LA BRUYERE.

"PRAY put on your Lennox face this morning, Mary," said Lady Emily one
day to her cousin, "for I want you to go and pay a funeral visit with me
to a distant relation, but unhappily a near neighbour of ours, who has
lately lost her husband. Lady Juliana and Adelaide ought to go, but they
won't, so you and I must celebrate, as we best can, the obsequies of the
Honourable Mr. Sufton."

Mary readily assented; and when they were seated in the carriage, her
cousin began--

"Since I am going to put you in the way of a trap, I think it but fair
to warn you of it. All traps are odious things, and I make it my
business to expose them wherever I find them. I own it chafes my spirit
to see even sensible people taken in by the clumsy machinery of such a
woman as Lady Matilda Sufton. So here she is in her true colours. Lady
Matilda is descended from the ancient and illustrious family of
Altamont. To have a fair character is, in her eyes, much more important
than to deserve it. She has prepared speeches for every occasion, and
she expects they are all to be believed--in short, she is a _show_
woman; the world is her theatre, and from it she looks for the plaudits
due to her virtue; for with her the reality and the semblance are
synonymous. She has a grave and imposing air, which keeps the timid at a
distance; and she delivers the most common truths as if they were the
most profound aphorisms. To degrade herself is her greatest fear; for,
to use her own expression, there is nothing so degrading as associating
with our inferiors--that is, our inferiors in rank and wealth--for with
her all other gradations are incomprehensible. With the lower orders of
society she is totally unacquainted; she knows they are meanly clothed
and coarsely fed, consequently they are mean. She is proud, both from
nature and principle; for she thinks it is the duty of every woman of
family to be proud, and that humility is only a virtue in the
_canaille._ Proper pride she calls it, though I rather think it ought
to be pride _proper,_ as I imagine it is a distinction that was unknown
before the introduction of heraldry. The only true knowledge, according
to her creed, is the knowledge of the world, by which she means a
knowledge of the most courtly etiquette, the manners and habits of the
gr