She had barely refrained
from laughing outright at the compliments of recognised wits, and half a
dozen gallants with amorous intentions had been baffled and put to
shame. Lord Rosmore, whose way with a woman was pronounced irresistible,
had declared her adorable, but impossible, and Judge Marriott had
promised Lady Bolsover a very handsome gratuity if she could persuade
her niece to favour him and become his wife.
Barbara Lanison could not be unconscious of the sensation she caused--a
woman never is--but she sometimes studied the reflection in her mirror,
and tried to discover the reason. Quite honestly she failed. She was not
dissatisfied with the reflection, in its way it was pleasing, she
admitted, but she had not supposed that it was of the kind that would
appeal to men, and to such a variety of men. The women who usually
pleased them were so different. It even occurred to her that there might
be something in herself, in her behaviour, which was not quite nice, and
that her real attraction lay in this, an idea which proved that her
estimate of the men who came to her aunt's house was not a very high
one.
Born and bred in the country, and with an amount of learning which her
uncle considered unnecessary, she had prejudices, no doubt, and possibly
had a standard of female beauty in her mind which her own reflection did
not satisfy.
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