of hair and eyes, was rich and clear. The strength
and unutterable sadness of her expression combined with her other charms
to make her face one which a stranger would turn to look at a second
time. She possessed to a rare degree the power of attracting people. Few
could resist the influence of her personality. Added to this she talked
cleverly, and even brilliantly. The tone of her conversation was at times
acrid and gloomy. Long years of toil in a hard, unjust world had borne
the fruit of pessimism. She was too apt to overlook the bright for the
dark side of a picture. But this was a fault which was amply
counterbalanced by her talents. For the first time she made friends who
were competent to justly measure her merits. She was recognized to be a
woman of more than ordinary talents, and she was treated accordingly.
Mean clothes and shabby houses were no drawbacks to clever women in those
days. Mrs. Inchbald, in gowns "always becoming, and very seldom worth so
much as eight-pence," as one of her admirers described them, was
surrounded as soon as she entered a crowded room, even when powdered and
elegantly attired ladies of fashion were deserted. And Mary, though she
had not glasses out of which to drink her wine, and though her coiffure
was unfashionable, became a person of consequence in literary circles.

Under the influence of congenial social surroundings, she gave up her
habits of retirement. She began to find enjoyment in society, and her
interest in life revived. She could even be gay, nor was there so much
sorrow in her laughter as there had been of yore. Among the most intimate
of her new acquaintances were Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli; and the account has
been preserved of at least one pleasure party to which she accompanied
them. This was a masked ball, and young Lavater, then in England, was
with them. Masquerades were then at the height of popularity. All sorts
and conditions of men went to them. Beautiful Amelia Opie, in her poorest
days, spent five pounds to gain admittance to one given to the Russian
ambassadors. Mrs. Inchbald, when well advanced in years, could enter so
thoroughly into the spirit of another as to beg a friend to lend her a
faded blue silk handkerchief or sash, that she might represent her real
character of a _passee_ blue-stocking. Mary's gayety on the present
occasion was less artificial than it had been at the Dublin mask. But
Fuseli's hot temper and fondness for a joke brought their amusement