The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women.  He did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion.  He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them.  It had been a frosty morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a thousand could stand the test of.  But still, there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse.  Such scarecrows as the streets were full of!  It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced.  He had never walked anywhere arm-in-arm with Colonel Wallis (who was a fine military figure, though sandy-haired) without observing that every woman’s eye was upon him; every woman’s eye was sure to be upon Colonel Wallis.”  Modest Sir Walter!  He was not allowed to escape, however.  His daughter and Mrs Clay united in hinting that Colonel Wallis’s companion might have as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly was not sandy-haired.

“How is Mary looking?” said Sir Walter, in the height of his good humour.  “The last time I saw her she had a red nose, but I hope that may not happen every day.”

“Oh! no, that must have been quite accidental.  In general she has been in very good health and very good looks since Michaelmas.”

“If I thought it would not tempt her to go out in sharp winds, and grow coarse, I would send her a new hat and pelisse.”

Anne was considering whether she should venture to suggest that a gown, or a cap, would not be liable to any such misuse, when a knock at the door suspended everything.  “A knock at the door! and so late!  It was ten o’clock.  Could it be Mr Elliot?  They knew he was to dine in Lansdown Crescent.  It was possible that he might stop in his way home to ask them how they did.  They could think of no one else.  Mrs Clay decidedly thought it Mr Elliot’s knock.”  Mrs Clay was right.  With all the state which a butler and foot-boy could give, Mr Elliot was ushered into the room.

It was the same, the very same man, with no difference but of dress.  Anne drew a little back, while the others received his compliments, and her sister his apologies for calling at so unusual an hour, but “he could not be so near without wishing to know that neither she nor her friend had taken cold the day before,” &c. &c; which was all as politely done, and as politely taken, as possible, but her part must follow then.  Sir Walter talked of his youngest daughter; “Mr Elliot must give him leave to present him to his youngest daughter” (there was no occasion for remembering Mary); and Anne, smiling