ey
leave vague and problematic; so I must tell you that Miss Linnet had dark
ringlets, a sallow complexion, and an amiable disposition. As to her
features, there was not much to criticize in them, for she had little
nose, less lip, and no eyebrow; and as to her intellect, her friend Mrs.
Pettifer often said: 'She didn't know a more sensible person to talk to
than Mary Linnet. There was no one she liked better to come and take a
quiet cup of tea with her, and read a little of Klopstock's 'Messiah.'
Mary Linnet had often told her a great deal of her mind when they were
sitting together: she said there were many things to bear in every
condition of life, and nothing should induce her to marry without a
prospect of happiness. Once, when Mrs. Pettifer admired her wax-flowers,
she said, "Ah, Mrs. Pettifer, think of the beauties of nature!" She
always spoke very prettily, did Mary Linnet; very different, indeed, from
Rebecca.'

Miss Rebecca Linnet, indeed, was not a general favourite. While most
people thought it a pity that a sensible woman like Mary had not found a
good husband--and even her female friends said nothing more ill-natured
of her, than that her face was like a piece of putty with two Scotch
pebbles stuck in it--Rebecca was always spoken of sarcastically, and it
was a customary kind of banter with young ladies to recommend her as a
wife to any gentleman they happened to be flirting with--her fat, her
finery, and her thick ankles sufficing to give piquancy to the joke,
notwithstanding the absence of novelty. Miss Rebecca, however, possessed
the accomplishment of music, and her singing of 'Oh no, we never mention
her', and 'The Soldier's Tear', was so desirable an accession to the
pleasures of a tea-party that no one cared to offend her, especially as
Rebecca had a high spirit of her own, and in spite of her expansively
rounded contour, had a particularly sharp tongue. Her reading had been
more extensive than her sister's, embracing most of the fiction in Mr.
Procter's circulating library, and nothing but an acquaintance with the
course of her studies could afford a clue to the rapid transitions in her
dress, which were suggested by the style of beauty, whether sentimental,
sprightly, or severe, possessed by the heroine of the three volumes
actually in perusal. A piece of lace, which drooped round the edge of her
white bonnet one week, had been rejected by the next; and her cheeks,
which, on Whitsunday, loomed thro