any of my family--a very odd thing. But my old friend Mrs. Napper knows
for certain.' And he turned to one of a small group of middle-aged
persons near, who, instead of skimming the surface of things in general,
like the rest of the company, were going into the very depths of them.

'O--that is the celebrated Mrs. Petherwin, the woman who makes rhymes and
prints 'em,' said Mrs. Napper, in a detached sentence, and then continued
talking again to those on the other side of her.

The two loungers went on with their observations of Ethelberta's
headdress, which, though not extraordinary or eccentric, did certainly
convey an idea of indefinable novelty. Observers were sometimes half
inclined to think that her cuts and modes were acquired by some secret
communication with the mysterious clique which orders the livery of the
fashionable world, for--and it affords a parallel to cases in which
clever thinkers in other spheres arrive independently at one and the same
conclusion--Ethelberta's fashion often turned out to be the coming one.

'O, is that the woman at last?' said Neigh, diminishing his broad general
gaze at the room to a close criticism of Ethelberta.

'"The rhymes," as Mrs. Napper calls them, are not to be despised,' said
his companion. 'They are not quite virginibus puerisque, and the
writer's opinions of life and society differ very materially from mine,
but I cannot help admiring her in the more reflective pieces; the songs I
don't care for. The method in which she handles curious subjects, and at
the same time impresses us with a full conviction of her modesty, is very
adroit, and somewhat blinds us to the fact that no such poems were
demanded of her at all.'