Isabel Revel was now eighteen years old, endowed with a mind so superior, that had not her talents been checked by a natural reserve, she might have stepped from the crowd, and have been hailed as a genius.  She had been brought up by a foolish mother, and had in her earlier years been checked by her two insipid sisters, who assumed over her an authority which their age alone could warrant.  Seldom, if ever, permitted to appear when there was company, that she might not “spoil the market” of the eldest, she had in her solitude applied much to reading, and thus had her mind been highly cultivated.

The conduct of her father entitled him to no respect; the heartlessness of her mother to no esteem; the tyranny of her sisters to no affection; yet did she strive to render all.  Until the age of sixteen she had been the Cinderella of the family, during which period of seclusion she had learned to think and to act for herself.

Her figure was a little above the middle size, light and elegant; her features beautiful, with an expression of seriousness, arising probably from speaking little and reflecting much.  Yet she possessed a mind ardent and enthusiastic, which often bore her away in animated discourse, until the eye of admiration fixed upon her would suddenly close her lips, for her modesty and her genius were at perpetual variance.

It is well known to most of my readers that woman is a problem; but it may not be as well known that nowadays she is a mathematical problem.  Yet so it is.  As in the latter you have certain known quantities given by which you are to find a quantity unknown, so in a lady you have the hand, the foot, the mouth, &c., apparent; and ’tis only by calculation, now that modern dresses are made so full, that you can arrive at a just estimate of her approach to total perfection.  All good arithmeticians, as they scrutinised the outward and the visible of Isabel Revel, were perfectly assured as to her quotient.  But if I talked for hours, I could say no more than that she was one of those ideal images created in the dream of youth and poetry, fairly embodied in flesh and blood.  As her father had justly surmised, could she have been persuaded to have tried her fortune on the stage, she had personal attractions, depth of feeling, and vivacity of mind to have rendered her one of the very first in a profession, to excel in which there is, perhaps, more correct judgment and versatility of talent required than in any other, and would have had a fair prospect of obtaining that coronet which has occasionally been the reward of those fair dames who “stoop to conquer.”

Mr Revel, who had been made acquainted with the customs on board of East India ships, had been introduced to Mrs Ferguson, and had requested her to take upon herself the office of chaperon to his daughters, during the passage:  a nominal charge indeed, yet considered to be etiquette.  Mrs Ferguson, pleased with the gentlemanlike demeanour and personal appearance of Mr Revel, and perhaps at the same time not sorry to have an authority to find fault, had most graciously acquiesced; and the three Miss Revels were considered to be under her protection.