who were her superiors in beauty, in accomplishments, in brilliancy of
manners and conversation--conquering by no other weapon than the
purely feminine charm of everything she said, and everything she did.

But it was not amid the gaiety and grandeur of a London season that
her character was displayed to the greatest advantage. It was when she
was living where she loved to live, in the old country-house, among
the old friends and old servants who would every one of them have died
a hundred deaths for her sake, that you could study and love her best.
Then, the charm there was in the mere presence of the kind, gentle,
happy young English girl, who could enter into everybody's interests,
and be grateful for everybody's love, possessed its best and brightest
influence. At picnics, lawn-parties, little country gatherings of all
sorts, she was, in her own quiet, natural manner, always the presiding
spirit of general comfort and general friendship. Even the rigid laws
of country punctilio relaxed before her unaffected cheerfulness and
irresistible good-nature. She always contrived--nobody ever knew
how--to lure the most formal people into forgetting their formality,
and becoming natural for the rest of the day. Even a heavy-headed,
lumbering, silent country squire was not too much for her. She
managed to make him feel at his ease, when no one else would undertake
the task; she could listen patiently to his confused speeches about
dogs, horses, and the state of the crops, when other conversations
were proceeding in which she was really interested; she could receive
any little grateful attention that he wished to pay her--no matter how
awkward or ill-timed--as she received attentions from any one else,
with a manner which showed she considered it as a favour granted to
her sex, not as a right accorded to it.

So, again, she always succeeded in diminishing the long list of those