of accomplishments to which Caroline had always been accustomed; so that
joining in her new sister's occupations and endeavours to make Alfred's
evenings pass pleasantly, she felt at once as much _at home_ as if she had
been in the country; for the mind is its own place, and domestic happiness
may be naturalized in a capital city.

At her brother's house, Caroline had an opportunity of seeing a society
that was new to her, that of the professional men of the first eminence
both in law and medicine, the men of science and of literature, with whom
Alfred and Erasmus had been for years assiduously cultivating acquaintance.
They were now happy to meet at Alfred's house, for they liked and esteemed
him, and they found his wife and sister sensible, well-informed women, to
whom their conversation was of real amusement and instruction; and who, in
return, knew how to enliven their leisure hours by female sprightliness
and elegance. Caroline now saw the literary and scientific world to the
best advantage: not the amateurs, or the mere _show_ people, but those who,
really excelling and feeling their own superiority, had too much pride and
too little time to waste upon idle flattery, or what to them were stupid,
uninteresting _parties_. Those who refused to go to Lady Spilsbury's, or to
Lady Angelica Headingham's, or who were seen there, perhaps, once or twice
in a season as a great favour and honour, would call three or four evenings
every week at Alfred's.

The first news, the first hints of discoveries, inventions, and literary
projects, she heard from time to time discussed. Those men of talent, whom
she had heard were to be seen at _conversaziones_, or of whom she had had
a glimpse in fine society, now appeared in a new point of view, and to the
best advantage; without those pretensions and rivalships with which they
sometimes are afflicted in public, or those affectations and singularities,
which they often are supposed to assume, to obtain notoriety among persons