"It is my nature to be happy," replied Isabel, laughing, "and my friends may out-talk me if they like. I only desire to chat and enjoy myself in peace."
"For shame, Isabel! you are not aware how you create enemies by such conduct. I was ashamed to see you racing down the middle and up again, with Tom Pynsent, at Lady Spottiswoode's carpet-dance. A young lady should never engross a gentleman's attention so conspicuously."
"Tom Pynsent amused me extremely, mamma: he was telling college stories, and off we capered without caring who remarked us."
"You are remarkably vulgar and underbred, my dear," resumed her mother, "and I have no hopes of your establishment. I am very much surprised at Anna Maria's beauty failing to elicit an offer; perhaps Julia may do better when she appears, but my hopes chiefly rest upon Clara. Her style of beauty is very magnificent."
Isabel's happy disposition received these shocks with inimitable good humour. She listened to daily remarks upon her want of elegance, and believed in her total exemption from the gifts which Nature had lavished upon her elder sister; but her mind scorned the idea of mourning over a useless grief. She cared not for extraneous advantages which could not reach the mind: she never entered a ball-room without a profusion of dancing engagements; and if she was liked and followed, even in the presence of her handsome sister, what did she care for mere beauty?
Lady Wetheral at last yielded the point, and allowed Isabel to choose her own mode of pleasing. Her taste turned with horror from her "unfortunate Isabel," but she ceased to look at, or remark upon, her brusquerie. She told Thompson, "some men took odd fancies to healthy, fat-looking, smiling girls, and probably Isabel might please some old rich widower or stupid retired bachelor, and marry at last: she would be a foil to her sisters, at any rate."
Lady Wetheral was right: an odd, "retired bachelor" did admire Isabel precisely for her healthy, good-humoured looks; and, in process of time, he advanced, slowly and cautiously, to the attack; but his manner concealed the matter long to all eyes but those of her father. Lady Wetheral was blind to the very dénouement.
"I can't imagine why that tiresome old Boscawen comes here every other morning, Sir John, sitting for hours and saying nothing: pray don't ask him to stay dinner again—he makes me ill."
"He is a great friend of mine, Gertrude: I like Boscawen."
"I know you like unaccountable people, love; but he worries me to death, and he will sit at dinner between Anna Maria and Isabel. I don't consider Isabel, but he keeps Tom Pynsent away from Anna Maria, and never enters into any sort of conversation."