they turned, were the eyes and forehead of
Aurora. The rest of her features were not handsome, though her mouth was
full of sensibility and sweetness, and her teeth were the most perfect I
ever saw. She was eccentric in many things, but in nothing more so than
the fashion of her dress, especially the coverings she provided for her
extremities, her hat and boots. The latter were not positively masculine
articles, but were nevertheless made by a man's boot-maker, and there
was only one place in London where they could be made sufficiently ugly
to suit her; and infinite were the pains she took to procure the heavy,
thick, cumbrous, misshapen things that as much as possible concealed and
disfigured her finely turned ankles and high, arched, Norman instep.
Indeed, her whole attire, peculiar (and very ugly, I thought it) as it
was, was so by malice prepense on her part. And whereas the general
result would have suggested a total disregard of the vanities of dress,
no Quaker coquette was ever more jealous of the peculiar texture of the
fabrics she wore, or of the fashion in which they were made. She wore no
colors, black and gray being the only shades I ever saw her in; and her
dress, bare and bald of every ornament, was literally only a covering
for her body; but it was difficult to find cashmere fine enough for her
scanty skirts, or cloth perfect enough for her short spencers, or lawn
clear and exquisite enough for her curious collars and cuffs of
immaculate freshness.

I remember a similar peculiarity of dress in a person in all other
respects the very antipodes of my friend H----. My mother took me once
to visit a certain Miss W----, daughter of a Stafford banker, her very
dear friend, and the godmother from whom I took my second name of Anne.

This lady inhabited a quaint, picturesque house in the oldest part of
the town of Stafford. Well do I remember its oak-wainscoted and
oak-paneled chambers, and the fine old oak staircase that led from the
hall to the upper rooms; also the extraordinary abundance and delicacy
of our meals, particularly the old-fashioned nine o'clock supper, about
every item of which, it seemed to me, more was said and thought than
about any food of which I ever before or since partook. It was in this
homely palace of good cheer that a saying originated, which passed into
a proverb with us, expressive of a rather _un_nice indulgence of
appetite.

One of the ladies, going out one day, called back to