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168 his admiration of the great improvement in Emily. "What a lovely creature she is grown!" Lady Mandeville gave him the very sweetest of smiles. Their early dinner was ready; and some of the party, at least, were very happy. Lord Mandeville partially forgot the interests of his young friend in the charm of Edward's conversation. Cecil was the only one who was in the "winter of discontent;" but it was very hard to be placed himself between a French countess—young, pretty, and exacting the amount of such demands in full—and a Miss Arabin, an English heiress, whose designs upon him had grown from amusing to alarming. He had not even the consolation of sitting opposite to Emily; she was on the other side, between the Countess' husband—a man whom nothing abstracted from the glorious science to which, as he said, he had for years devoted every faculty of his body and his mind, viz. eating. To enjoy his dinner first, and afterwards to reflect on that enjoyment, comprised the whole of his estimate of table duties: as for talking, it was sometimes matter of necessity, but never of pleasure. It was said he only married in order to have a