was not, therefore, very charming;
but his faults were softened down in her; and what was pretence in
him, was, to a certain degree, real in her. She had a most exaggerated
conception of her own station and dignity, and of what was due to her,
and expected from her. Because her rank enabled her to walk out of a
room before other women, she fancied herself better than them, and
entitled to be thought better. She was plain, red-haired, and in no
ways attractive; but she had refused the offer of a respectable country
gentleman, because he was only a country gentleman, and then flattered
herself that she owned the continuance of her maiden condition to her
high station, which made her a fit match only for the most exalted
magnates of the land. But she was true, industrious, and charitable;
she worked hard to bring her acquirements to that pitch which she
considered necessary to render her fit for her position; she truly
loved her family, and tried hard to love her neighbours, in which she
might have succeeded but for the immeasurable height from which she
looked down on them. She listened, complacently, to all those serious
cautions against pride, which her religion taught her, and considered
that she was obeying its warnings, when she spoke condescendingly to
those around her. She thought that condescension was humility, and that
her self-exaltation was not pride, but a proper feeling of her own and
her family's dignity.

[FOOTNOTE 22: premiere jeunesse--(French) prime of youth]

Fanny Wyndham was a very different creature. She, too, was proud, but
her pride was of another, if not of a less innocent cast; she was proud
of her own position; but it was as Fanny Wyndham, not as Lord Cashel's
niece, or anybody's daughter. She had been brought out in the
fashionable world, and liked, and was liked by, it; but she felt that
she owed the character which three years had given her, to herself, and
not to those around her. She stood as high as Lady Selina, though on
very different grounds. Any undue familiarity would have been quite as
impossible with one as with the other. Lady Selina chilled intruders to
a distance; Fanny Wyndham's light burned with so warm a flame, that
butterflies were afraid to trust their wings within its reach. She was
neither so well read, nor so thoughtful on what she did read, as her
friend; but she could turn what she learned to more account, for the
benefit of others. The one, in fact, could please