Page:The Castle of Wolfenbach - Parsons - 1854.djvu/66

 equally delighted with her companion, and they soon after had an additional charm to their party by the arrival of Madame de Nancy and Mademoiselle de Bancre: the latter was near two and twenty, very handsome, a great share of good humour, and a most enchanting vivacity; her sister being sacrificed very early in life to an elderly man, every way unworthy of her, except by his immense fortune; he used her extremely ill, always out of humour and suspicious: she suffered under his tyranny five or six years; he then died, and left her mistress of a large independence, the expenditure of which did her great honor. Her sister, who had witnessed her bad treatment from an unworthy husband, determined never to marry; they resided together, equally beloved and respected.

Matilda was charmed with her new acquaintance; a swarm of beaus surrounded them, but she thought their conversation, their fopperies, and fulsome compliments truly disgusting, on a comparison with the sensible and elegant manners of her newly acquired female friends.

When the company separated Matilda received numerous invitations, every one professing themselves delighted with the charming Miss Weimar; but those professions were not equally sincere. A Mademoiselle de Fontelle beheld her with envy and dislike; she was a young woman of family and large fortune, had been taken about two years from a convent where she was placed on the death of her mother; and soon after that period her father also died suddenly, and left her solely to the care of an aunt, an old gay coquet, whom ever body despised, yet every body visited, because she had large parties, elegant entertainments, and high play. Under the care, if it can be so called, of this ridiculous old woman, Mademoiselle de Fontelle had acquired all the follies and vanities incident to youth and beauty, when under no restrictions, no proper precepts or example. She detested handsome women, was desirous of engrossing universal admiration to herself, had a malignant heart, yet