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gentleman of his connections could not be expected to consort on equal terms with (as he neatly phrased it) a bundle of Cits. This easy air of assurance, and a patrician cast of countenance he bequeathed to his elder daughter. Her Uncle Henry found himself ill at ease in her presence, and wished that if his son Joshua must feel it incumbent on him to fall in love with one of his cousins, he would choose the easier and prettier Sophia.
    Mrs. Challoner had only the two daughters, and since Mary’s sixteenth birthday her main object in life had been to marry them both suitably as soon as possible. The signal success once achieved by a certain Irish widow put ideas into her head which her brother thought absurd, but though she admitted that Mary, in spite of her grand education, could scarcely hope to achieve more than a respectable alliance, she could not find that either Maria or Elizabeth Gunning in their prime had outshone her own Sophia. It was more than twenty years since the Gunning sisters had taken the town by storm, and Mrs. Challoner could not remember ever to have set eyes on either, but she knew several reliable persons who had, and they all assured her that Sophia far transcended the famous beauties. If Mrs. Gunning, who hadn’t a penny, and was dreadfully Irish as well, could catch an earl and a duke in her matrimonial net, there seemed to be very little reason why Mrs. Challoner, with a respectable jointure, and no common Irish accent, should not do quite as well. Or if not quite, at least half—for she was not besotted about her daughters, and had made up her mind a long time ago that nothing great could be hoped for Mary.
    It was not that the girl was ill-favoured. She had a fine pair of grey eyes, and her profile with its delightfully straight nose and short upper lip was quite lovely. But placed beside Sophia she was nothing beyond the common. What chance had chestnut curls when compared to a riot of bright gold ringlets? What chance had cool grey eyes when the most limpid blue ones peeped between preposterously long eyelashes?
    She had, moreover, grave disadvantages. Those fine eyes of hers had a disconcertingly direct gaze, and very often twinkled in a manner disturbing to male egotism. She had common-sense too, and what man wanted the plainly matter-of-fact, when he could enjoy instead Sophia’s delicious folly? Worst of all she had been educated at a very select seminary—Mrs. Challoner was sometimes afraid that she was almost a Bluestocking.
    The education had been provided by the girl’s paternal relatives, and at one time Mrs. Challoner had expected wonders to come of it. But Mary seemed to have acquired nothing from it but a quantity of useless knowledge, and a certain elegance of deportment The select seminary had housed young ladies of the highest rank, but Mary’s common-sense fell short of making fast-friends with any of them, so that Mrs. Challoner’s visions of entering the Polite World through her daughter’s friendships all vanished, and she was left to wish that she had never applied to the Challoners for help at all. Yet at the time of Charles Challoner’s early demise, it had seemed to her to be an excellent thing to do. Her brother had said that she could hope for nothing from such high and mighty folk, and it certainly seemed now as though she had got worse than nothing. While evincing no desire to set eyes on his late son’s spouse, General Sir Giles Challoner had expressed his willingness to provide for the education of his eldest granddaughter. Mrs. Challoner perforce had accepted this half-loaf, with the secret belief that it would lead to better things. It never had. On several occasions Mary had been bidden on a visit to Buckinghamshire, but no suggestion either of adopting her, or of inviting her mamma and sister to share the visit, had ever been made.
    It was bitterly disappointing, but Mrs. Challoner was a just woman, and she had no doubt that the frustration of her