When was there ever an evening too warm for young people to dance! Elinor's friends had not been in the room half an hour, before they discovered that they were just the right number to make a quadrille agreeable. They were enough to form a double set; and, while they were dancing, the elder part of the company were sitting in groups near the windows, to catch the evening air, and talking over neighbourly matters, or looking on at their young friends.
"Don't you think Elinor very graceful?" exclaimed Mrs. Van Horne to her friend, Mrs. Bernard. "I like to watch her, while she is dancing; her movements are all so pleasing and easy, never, in the least, exaggerated—but, it is in her very nature; she has always been the same, from a little creature."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Bernard; "but it is a pity her face should be so ugly; for she has rather a pretty figure—"
"Do you think her really ugly? She does not strike me, as so very plain—there is nothing repulsive in her face. I have known girls called pretty, who had something far nearer coarseness in their features. It is true, I have been accustomed to see her from the time she was four years old; and, I know, she is always thought very plain by strangers."
"Why, my dear Mrs. Van Horne, she has not one feature that can be called good; and her eye-brows are so heavy, and her complexion is so thick and dark, too!"
"Yes, it is true, she is very dark; and that is a pity; if she were only fairer, her features would appear to greater advantage."
"Just look at her now," said Mrs. Bernard, "as she is standing by her cousin, Jane Graham, who is dancing with your son. Was there ever a greater contrast?"
"But Jane is so remarkably pretty—"
"Certainly, she is a perfect little beauty; and that is one reason, perhaps, why Elinor strikes us as so plain; she is so much with her cousin—"
"Well," said Mrs. Van Horne, "if you are going to quarrel so much, with my little friend's face, we had better find something else to talk about; for she is a very great favourite of mine."