this she had no design; Miss Broadhurst had too lofty and independent
a spirit to stoop to coquetry: she thought that, in their interview
at the gala, she understood Lord Colambre, and that he understood
her--that he was not inclined to court her for her fortune--that she
would not be content with any suitor who was not a lover. She was two
or three years older than Lord Colambre, perfectly aware of her want
of beauty, yet with a just sense of her own merit, and of what was
becoming and due to the dignity of her sex. This, she trusted, was
visible in her manners, and established in Lord Colambre's mind; so
that she ran no risk of being misunderstood by him; and as to what the
rest of the world thought, she was so well used to hear weekly and
daily reports of her going to be married to fifty different people,
that she cared little for what was said on this subject. Indeed,
conscious of rectitude, and with an utter contempt for mean and
commonplace gossiping, she was, for a woman, and a young woman, rather
too disdainful of the opinion of the world. Mrs. Broadhurst, though
her daughter had fully explained herself respecting Lord Colambre,
before she began this course of visiting, yet rejoiced that even on
this footing there should be constant intercourse between them. It was
Mrs. Broadhurst's warmest wish that her daughter should obtain rank,
and connect herself with an ancient family; she was sensible that the
young lady's being older than the gentleman might be an obstacle; and
very sorry she was to find that her daughter had so imprudently, so
unnecessarily, declared her age: but still this little obstacle might
be overcome, much greater difficulties in the marriage of inferior
heiresses being every day got over, and thought nothing of. Then, as
to the young lady's own sentiments, her mother knew them better than
she did herself: she understood her daughter's pride, that she dreaded
to be made an object of bargain and sale; but Mrs. Broadhurst, who,
with all her coarseness of mind, had rather a better notion of love