electrifies you with the shock of her wit; and both talk so much and so loud, and are such egotists, that I rather think a clever woman is even a greater term of reproach than a good creature.  But to return to that clever woman Mrs. Downe Wright:  she is a widow, left with the management of an only son—­a commonplace, weak young man.  No one, I believe, is more sensible of his mental deficiencies than his mother; but she knows that a man of fortune is, in the eyes of the many, a man of consequence; and she therefore wisely talks of it as his chief characteristic.  To keep him in good company, and get him well married, is all her aim; and this, she thinks, will not be difficult, as he is very handsome-possesses an estate of ten thousand a year—­and succeeds to some Scotch Lord Something’s title—­there’s for you, Mary!  She once had views of Adelaide, but Adelaide met the advances with so much scorn that Mrs. Downe Wright declared she was thankful she had shown the cloven foot in time, for that she never would have done for a wife to her William.  Now you are the very thing to suit, for you have no cloven feet to show.”

“Or at least you are not so quick-sighted as Mrs. Downe Wright.  You have not spied them yet, it seems,” said Mary, with a smile.

“Oh, as to that, if you had them, I should defy you, or anyone, to hide them from me.  When I reflect upon the characters of most of my acquaintances, I sometimes think nature has formed my optics only to see disagreeables.”

“That must be a still more painful faculty of vision than even the second-sight,” said Mary; “but I should think it depended very much upon yourself to counteract it.”

“Impossible! my perceptions are so peculiarly alive to all that is obnoxious to them that I could as soon preach my eyes into blindness, or my ears into deafness, as put down my feelings with chopping logic.  If people will be affected and ridiculous, why must I live in a state of warfare with myself on account of the feelings they rouse within me?”

“If people will be irritable,” said Mary, laughing, “why must others sacrifice their feelings to gratify them?”

“Because mine are natural feelings, and theirs are artificial.  A very saint must sicken at sight of affectation, you’ll allow.  Vulgarity, even innate vulgarity, is bearable—­stupidity itself is pardonable—­but affectation is never to be endured or forgiven.”

“It admits of palliation, at least,” answered Mary.  “I dare say there are many people who would have been pleasing and natural in their manners had not their parents and teachers interfered.  There are many, I believe, who have not courage to show themselves such as they are—­some who are naturally affected and many, very many, who have been taught affectation as a necessary branch of education.”

“Yes—­as my governesses would have taught me; but, thank heaven!  I got the better of them. Fascinating was what they wanted to make me; but whenever the word was mentioned, I used to knit my brows, and frown upon them in such a sort.  The frown, like now, sticks by me; but no matter—­a frowning brow is better than a false heart, and I defy anyone to say that I am fascinating.”