So might it be amplified.  A simple-seeming word of this import is the triumph of the spiritual, and where it passes for coin of value, the society has reached a high refinement:  Arcadian by the aesthetic route.  Observation of Willoughby was not, as Miss Eleanor Patterne pointed out to Lady Culmer, drawn down to the leg, but directed to estimate him from the leg upward.  That, however, is prosaic.  Dwell a short space on Mrs. Mountstuart’s word; and whither, into what fair region, and with how decorously voluptuous a sensation, do not we fly, who have, through mournful veneration of the Martyr Charles, a coy attachment to the Court of his Merrie Son, where the leg was ribanded with love-knots and reigned.  Oh! it was a naughty Court.  Yet have we dreamed of it as the period when an English cavalier was grace incarnate; far from the boor now hustling us in another sphere; beautifully mannered, every gesture dulcet.  And if the ladies were . . . we will hope they have been traduced.  But if they were, if they were too tender, ah! gentlemen were gentlemen then—­worth perishing for!  There is this dream in the English country; and it must be an aspiration after some form of melodious gentlemanliness which is imagined to have inhabited the island at one time; as among our poets the dream of the period of a circle of chivalry here is encouraged for the pleasure of the imagination.

Mrs. Mountstuart touched a thrilling chord.  “In spite of men’s hateful modern costume, you see he has a leg.”

That is, the leg of the born cavalier is before you:  and obscure it as you will, dress degenerately, there it is for ladies who have eyes.  You see it:  or, you see he has it.  Miss Isabel and Miss Eleanor disputed the incidence of the emphasis, but surely, though a slight difference of meaning may be heard, either will do:  many, with a good show of reason, throw the accent upon leg.  And the ladies knew for a fact that Willoughby’s leg was exquisite; he had a cavalier court-suit in his wardrobe.  Mrs. Mountstuart signified that the leg was to be seen because it was a burning leg.  There it is, and it will shine through!  He has the leg of Rochester, Buckingham, Dorset, Suckling; the leg that smiles, that winks, is obsequious to you, yet perforce of beauty self-satisfied; that twinkles to a tender midway between imperiousness and seductiveness, audacity and discretion; between “You shall worship me”, and “I am devoted to you;” is your lord, your slave, alternately and in one.  It is a leg of ebb and flow and high-tide ripples.  Such a leg, when it has done with pretending to retire, will walk straight into the hearts of women.  Nothing so fatal to them.

Self-satisfied it must be.  Humbleness does not win multitudes or the sex.  It must be vain to have a sheen.  Captivating melodies (to prove to you the unavoidableness of self-satisfaction when you know that you have hit perfection), listen to them closely, have an inner pipe of that conceit almost ludicrous when you detect the chirp.