"What if I could inform you, that among scores of belles, flatterers,
triflers, who swim along these walks, self-satisfied and pleased, and
looking defiances to men (and to modesty, I had like to have said; for
bashfulness seems to be considered as want of breeding in all I see here);
a pretty woman is as rare as a black swan; and when one such starts up,
she is nicknamed a Beauty, and old fellows and young fellows are set
a-spinning after her."

"_Miss Banks_ (Miss Peggy Banks) was the belle when I came first down--yet
she had been so many seasons here, that she obtained but a faint and
languid attention; so that the smarts began to put her down in their list
of had-beens. New faces, my dear, are more sought after than fine faces. A
piece of instruction lies here--that women should not make even their
faces cheap."

"_Miss Chudleigh_ next was the triumphant toast: a lively, sweet-tempered,
gay, self-admired, and not altogether without reason, generally-admired
lady--she moved not without crowds after her. She smiled at every one.
Every one smiled before they saw her, when they heard she was on the walk.
She played, she lost, she won--all with equal good-humour. But, alas, she
went off, before she was wished to go off. And then the fellows' hearts
were almost broken for a new beauty."

"Behold! seasonably, the very day that she went away entered upon the
walks Miss L., of Hackney!--Miss Chudleigh was forgotten (who would wish
for so transient a dominion in the land of fickledom!)--And have you seen
the new beauty?--And have you seen Miss L.? was all the inquiry from smart
to smartless. But she had not traversed the walks two days, before she was
found to want spirit and life. Miss Chudleigh was remembered by those who