as playful, as gentle, and as kind. She is clever too, and has all
the knowledge and accomplishments that a carefully-conducted
education, acting on a mind of singular clearness and ductility,
matured and improved by the very best company, can bestow. But one
never thinks of her acquirements. It is the charming artless
character, the bewitching sweetness of manner, the real and
universal sympathy, the quick taste and the ardent feeling, that one
loves in Emily. She is Irish by birth, and has in perfection the
melting voice and soft caressing accent by which her fair
countrywomen are distinguished. Moreover she is pretty--I think her
beautiful, and so do all who have heard as well as seen her,--but
pretty, very pretty, all the world must confess; and perhaps that is
a distinction more enviable, because less envied, than the 'palmy
state' of beauty. Her prettiness is of the prettiest kind--that of
which the chief character is youthfulness. A short but pleasing
figure, all grace and symmetry, a fair blooming face, beaming with
intelligence and good-humour; the prettiest little feet and the
whitest hands in the world;--such is Emily I.

She resides with her maternal grandmother, a venerable old lady,
slightly shaken with the palsy; and when together (and they are so
fondly attached to each other
that they are seldom parted), it is one of the loveliest
combinations of youth and age ever witnessed. There is no seeing
them without feeling an increase of respect and affection for both
grandmother and granddaughter--always one of the tenderest and most
beautiful of natural connections--as Richardson knew when he made
such exquisite use of it in his matchless book. I fancy that
grandmamma Shirley must have been just such another venerable lady
as Mrs. S., and our sweet Emily--Oh no! Harriet Byron is not half