aware of her want of beauty, yet with a just sense of her own merit,
and of what was becoming and due to the dignity of her sex. This, she
trusted, was visible in her manners, and established in Lord Colambre's
mind; so that she ran no risk of being misunderstood by him; and as to
what the rest of the world thought, she was so well used to hear weekly
and daily reports of her going to be married to fifty different people,
that she cared little for what was said on this subject. Indeed,
conscious of rectitude, and with an utter contempt for mean and
commonplace gossiping, she was, for a woman, and a young woman, rather
too disdainful of the opinion of the world. Mrs. Broadhurst, though her
daughter had fully explained herself respecting Lord Colambre, before
she began this course of visiting, yet rejoiced that, even on this
footing, there should be constant intercourse between them. It was Mrs.
Broadhurst's warmest wish that her daughter should obtain rank, and
connect herself with an ancient family: she was sensible that the young
lady's being older than the gentleman might be an obstacle; and
very sorry she was to find that her daughter had so imprudently, so
unnecessarily, declared her age; but still this little obstacle might
be overcome; much greater difficulties in the marriage of inferior
heiresses were every day got over, and thought nothing of. Then, as to
the young lady's own sentiments, her mother knew them better than she
did herself; she understood her daughter's pride, that she dreaded to be
made an object of bargain and sale; but Mrs. Broadhurst, who, with all
her coarseness of mind, had rather a better notion of love matters
than Lady Clonbrony, perceived, through her daughter's horror of being
offered to Lord Colambre, through her anxiety that nothing approaching
to an advance on the part of her family should be made, that if Lord
Colambre should himself advance, he would stand a better chance of being
accepted than any other of the numerous persons who had yet aspired to
the favour of this heiress. The very circumstance of his having paid no