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own sagacity and management. She was willing even to undervalue the personal attractions of Isabella, that she might exalt her own talents in having made them produce more than their price..

"You see, girls," she would observe to her daughters, "that it is not superior beauty that always succeeds best; -there is no denying that Lady Charlotte is handsomer than Isabella - at least more imposing-she suffers the powers of her charms to be less disputed, but what has all this done. for her? after three years' exhibition on her part, and all the manoeuvering possible on Lady Stanton's, what is it come to at last? she has married, what?

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a man of warehouses and manufactories. Not that I look down upon trade-God forbid! it is the sinews of the Nation, and the best houses in the peerage have been beholden to it.

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But this Mr. Dunston?-so recent ! so fresh from the shop! his manners so little purified! his clumsy opulence reminds one every moment of his only distinction, and the lowness of his mind shows how little worthy he is even of that. I am astonished my brother would consent to such an union; but he has such a tribe of daughters, and his estate is so encumbered! the fault was in Lady Charlotte; and it all springs from the same source- - education! education !—I always foretold how it would be, and now I hope you will acknowledge that I was right, and be sensible of the obligations that you all owe to my care. Three years' experience has shown that a man of fashion would not have so self-willed a wife, and Lady Charlotte was glad to take up with the man that would. I hope that she will be duly thankful to him, but what would Lady Stanton give

to call Mr. Willoughby her son-inlaw."

The young ladies could not but allow that Lady Jane had done excellently well for one daughter, and secretly hoping that she would be equally successful for the other two, felt a fresh flow of spirits, and anticicipated enjoyment, as they looked around on ottomans and candelabras, on gorgeous liveries and elegant carriages. Of the two latter ingredients in matrimonial happiness it must be acknowledged that Lady Charlotte was by no means deficient; nor could it be discovered by any outward sign or gesture, except sometimes a slight movement in her beautiful lip when addressed by Mr. Dunston, that she thought there was any thing wanting to make her the object of envy-never

had her brow been seen so cloudless,

never had her manners been so

equal; every childish or school room emulation appeared to be forgotten. Isabella was her "dear cousin"— her "chere amie:"-and it was "we," and "us" and " you and I know, my dear,”—with every other phrase of faliar intercourse and appropriate liking, that bespoke the friendship of near relations and chosen companions.

How wonderfully is Lady Charlotte improved by her marriage! thought Isabella I am quite convinced that she has done the thing she liked; and now that she is at ease, as to her esta lishment in life, we shall see no more of those hot and cold fits, those uncertainties and caprices which used to make her so intolerable we must be much together, the change will be greatly to my advantage.

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Yet when Isabella heard and saw Mr. Dunstan, certain doubts came across her mind!-"Was he not all that

Lady Charlotte had been accustomed to ridicule and despise ?-his plebeian birth, his ludicrous deference for all that was great, even the creeping devotion which he paid to his titled wife, she should have supposed would have been of all things revolting to her high and disdainful spirit." These doubts were not weakened by a certain turn of Lady Charlotte's eye, which Isabella knew well, and which, although it appeared now to be put more than usually under control, seemed to say that Lady Charlotte's present forbearance rested on no sound foundation nor did she think this the less for the pains which Lady Charlotte took to magnify all Mr. Dunstan's supposable good qualities, and her eager recommendation of him to Isabella's approbation. Isabella suspected that so much unnecessary pains, had the merits been real, must arise either from

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