was hurt at not having been asked to a party: and being hurt because she
was not going, she longed most eagerly to go.

The next evening came. Erpingham House was not large, but it was well
adapted to the description of assembly its beautiful owner had invited.
Statues, busts, pictures, books, scattered or arranged about the
apartments, furnished matter for intellectual conversation, or gave at
least an intellectual air to the meeting.

About a hundred persons were present. They were selected from the most
distinguished ornaments of the time. Musicians, painters, authors,
orators, fine gentlemen, dukes, princes, and beauties. One thing,
however, was imperatively necessary in order to admit them--the profession
of liberal opinions. No Tory, however wise, eloquent or beautiful, could,
that evening, have obtained the sesame to those apartments.

Constance never seemed more lovely, and never before was she so winning.
The coldness and the arrogance of her manner had wholly vanished. To
every one she spoke; and to every one her voice, her manner, were kind,
cordial, familiar, but familiar with a soft dignity that heightened the
charm. Ambitious not only to please but to dazzle, she breathed into her
conversation all the grace and culture of her mind. They who admired her
the most were the most accomplished themselves.

Now exchanging with foreign nobles that brilliant trifling of the world in
which there is often so much penetration, wisdom, and research into
character; now with a kindling eye and animated cheek commenting, with
poets and critics, on literature and the arts; now, in a more remote and
quiet corner, seriously discussing, with hoary politicians, those affairs
in which even they allowed her shrewdness and her grasp of intellect; and