Page:Lady Anne Granard 3.pdf/199

Rh season presents; it would break my heart (though, being old, it may be deemed tough) for him to be inveigled into marriage by mere beauty or showy accomplishments—by mere money he never will—I could have wished much—but here comes Georgiana; we must say no more." Sir Edward did not doubt but his sister wished the elder brother had chosen her, because he had allowed such thoughts at times to occupy his own mind; but in this he was mistaken. Enough for both that they were cheered by her unceasing attention, her cheerful prattle, and her powers of grateful listening, when they were able and willing to address her. Both herself and sisters had struck them as resembling the girls of olden time, always the criterion for excellence with the aged, who seldom believe that beauty is beautiful when denuded of those accompaniments it adopted when their own young hearts first throbbed at its bidding, when they felt that And it would be difficult to persuade any old man that the court of William IV. contained so many fine women as that of George III., even when they own that the absence of small-pox alone gives us nine out of ten left as handsome as nature made them. Perhaps, however, it is a happy provision