Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/164

162 know I set it all down to my own judicious advice and exquisite example." "You need not put on a deprecating look; I am not going to find a single fault. Emily is wonderfully improved—she has lost all that was painful, and retained all that was pleasing, in her timidity; and to her own natural graces she has added divers acquired ones, for which I do confess she is greatly indebted to you; and then she is so very much prettier than I ever gave her credit for being." "That is," said Lady Mandeville, "because now you always see her dressed to advantage." "Nay, Ellen, you will not tell me that a pretty gown makes a pretty woman." "It does a great deal towards it; but you gentlemen always run away with some vague idea of white-muslin and cottage-bonnet simplicity, which you call dress—which in reality ought to be numbered among the fine arts, and requires both natural and cultivated taste. Now, Emily had the one, but wanted the other. During her first season she was left to her own inventions—the heaviest of misfortunes to a young damsel. Lady Alicia was just 'ivorie neatly fashioned;' and Emily came up to town a domestic darling and rural beauty. Her self