though she must in fact be ten years older, I was certainly not disposed to
admire her, though always hearing she was beautiful; but I cannot help
feeling that she possesses an uncommon union of symmetry, brilliancy, and
grace. Her address to me was so gentle, frank, and even affectionate, that,
if I had not known how much she has always disliked me for marrying Mr.
Vernon, and that we had never met before, I should have imagined her an
attached friend. One is apt, I believe, to connect assurance of manner with
coquetry, and to expect that an impudent address will naturally attend an
impudent mind; at least I was myself prepared for an improper degree of
confidence in Lady Susan; but her countenance is absolutely sweet, and her
voice and manner winningly mild. I am sorry it is so, for what is this but
deceit? Unfortunately, one knows her too well. She is clever and agreeable,
has all that knowledge of the world which makes conversation easy, and
talks very well, with a happy command of language, which is too often used,
I believe, to make black appear white. She has already almost persuaded me
of her being warmly attached to her daughter, though I have been so long
convinced to the contrary. She speaks of her with so much tenderness and
anxiety, lamenting so bitterly the neglect of her education, which she
represents however as wholly unavoidable, that I am forced to recollect how
many successive springs her ladyship spent in town, while her daughter was
left in Staffordshire to the care of servants, or a governess very little
better, to prevent my believing what she says.

If her manners have so great an influence on my resentful heart, you may
judge how much more strongly they operate on Mr. Vernon's generous temper.
I wish I could be as well satisfied as he is, that it was really her choice
to leave Langford for Churchhill; and if she had not stayed there for
months before she discovered that her friend's manner of living did not
suit her situation or feelings, I might have believed that concern for the
loss of such a husband as Mr. Vernon, to whom her own behaviour was far