the
dashing families of the city have a right to lay claim to. She declares
that Mrs. Simms has no right to assume the importance that she
does--that though her father was a very respectable man, still, when she
was a girl, the family lived in a very obscure part of the town, and
were wholly unknown among our first people. Miss Smith, however, who is
very much afraid that her mother is going to indulge in too minute and
wearisome an investigation of genealogies, conducts the conversation to
subjects which she supposes to be more interesting to the rest of the
party. She objects to the want of taste displayed by those awful looking
Misses Rogers, who deck themselves out like young girls, when every body
knows they have been in society for the last fifteen years--that their
mother has made herself notorious, as well as ridiculous, by angling for
every young man of desirable means in the city. Miss Smith likewise
expresses her wonder when that stupid Lieutenant Jones _will_ marry Miss
Simms. She declares that "she is tired of seeing the two together; that
one cannot go to any public place, but the first persons who meet the
eye are Jones and Miss Simms; that if the weather is fair, and you walk
out, there are the loving couple in the street. Go to Newport, there
they are--go to the opera, there they are. If they can find means to run
incessantly to parties and balls, watering places and operas, why cannot
they get married?" Miss Smith concludes her observations on the
over-fond lovers, by emphasising the words "so stupid, is it not?" at
the same time giving them both an affirmative and interrogative
character. Harry Brown responds that it might be excessively
uninteresting to be always thus placed in proximity to Miss Simms, but
that there are other young ladies of his acquaintance, with whom such
extreme intimacy would be any thing but stupid. To this ambiguous use of
the word "stupid," Miss Smith makes no reply, but merely looks at Mr.
Brown as if she had not the slightest idea whatever that a very personal
allusion to herself had been made by that gentleman. Miss Smith again
indulges in reflections on society with a great deal of freedom and
pointedness of expression, which much amuses cousin George, who laughs
approvingly at what he terms the "sharpness" of his relative. Brother
Charles remains wholly unattentive to a kind of conversation which his
fair sister so often takes part in, and is absorbed in estimating, on
th