heartily mortified, as from my silence and melancholy countenance she
concluded that I was; in reality I stood deploring that so pretty a
creature had so mean a mind. The only vexation I felt was at her having
destroyed the possibility of my enjoying that delightful illusion which
beauty creates.

My mother, who had been, as she said, quite nervous all this evening, at
last brought Lady Anne to terms, and patched up a peace, by prevailing on
Lady de Brantefield, who could not be prevailed on by any one else, to make
a party to go to some new play which Lady Anne was _dying_ to see. It was a
sentimental comedy, and I did not much like it; however, I was all
complaisance for my mother's sake, and she in return renewed her promise to
go with me to patronize Shylock. By the extraordinary anxiety my mother
showed, and by the pains she took that there should be peace betwixt Lady
Anne and me, I perceived, what had never before struck me, that my mother
wished me to be in love with her ladyship.

Now I could sooner have been in love with Lady de Brantefield. Give her
back a decent share of youth and beauty, I think I could sooner have liked
the mother than the daughter.

By the force and plastic power of my imagination, I could have turned and
moulded Lady de Brantefield, with all her repulsive haughtiness, into a
Clelia, or a Princess de Cleves, or something of the Richardson
full-dressed heroine, with hoop and fan, and _stand off, man_!--and then
there would be cruelty and difficulty, and incomprehensibility-something
to be conquered--something to be wooed and won. But with Lady Anne Mowbray
my imagination had nothing to work upon, no point to dwell on, nothing on
which a lover's fancy could feed: there was no doubt, no hope, no fear, no
reserve of manner, no dignity of mind.