Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/8

6 stepped through the arch, was quite charming. We ourselves knew the least about it; for we were too much taken up with our own appearance to think about others. After myself, to whom, of course, in my secret heart, I gave the first vote,—the beauties of the day were the Duchess of Queensberry and Lady Mary Wortley Montague. It is, after all, full dress that is the test of the gentlewoman. Common people are frightened at an unusual toilette: they think that finer clothes deserve finer manners, forgetting that any manner, to be good, must be that of every day. But you should have seen my beauties,—so stately, yet so easy, as if the ermine mantle were familiar as the white and spreading wings are to the swan. Then the fine features were lighted up with a consciousness of looking well, which is one of beauty's most becoming moods. The Duchess of Queensberry is accustomed to that grace with which poetry invests flattery; but she is fitted to inspire it. Odd, very often rude, setting all common rules at defiance, I yet like her better than most of those with