_Penelope Primrose_ exceeded the middle stature, that her dark blue eyes
were shaded by a deep and graceful fringe, that her complexion was
somewhat too pale for beauty, but that its paleness was not perceptible as
a defect whenever a smile illumined her countenance, and developed the
dimples that lurked in her cheek and underlip. Her features were regular,
her gait exceedingly graceful, and her voice musical in the highest degree.
Seldom, indeed, would she indulge in the pleasure of vocal music, but when
she did, as was sometimes the case to please the Countess of Smatterton,
her ladyship, who was a most excellent judge, used invariably to pronounce
Miss Primrose as the finest and purest singer that she had ever heard.

The character of Lord Spoonbill is struck out with singular felicity and
spirit:--

Lord Spoonbill was not one of those careless young men who lose at the
university what they have gained at school; one reason was, that he had
little or nothing to lose; nor was his lordship one of those foolish
people who go to a university and study hard to acquire languages which
they never use, and sciences which they never apply in after-life. His
lordship had sense enough to conclude that, as the nobility do not talk
Greek, he had no occasion to learn it; and as hereditary legislators have
nothing to do with the exact sciences, it would be a piece of idle
impertinence in him to study mathematics. But his lordship had heard that
hereditary legislators did occasionally indulge in other pursuits, and for
those pursuits he took especial care to qualify himself. In his lordship's
cranium, the organ of exclusiveness was strongly developed. We do not mean
that his head was so constructed internally, as to exclude all useful
furniture, but that he had a strong sense of the grandeur of nobility and
the inseparable dignity which attaches itself to the privileged orders.
The only instances in which he condescended to persons in inferior rank,