He
was a young nobleman of whom various accounts were given by various
people; but I fear that the account most readily accepted in London
attributed to him a great intimacy with the affairs at Newmarket,
and a partiality for convivial pleasures. Respecting Lord Chiltern
Phineas had never as yet exchanged a word with Lady Laura. With her
father he was acquainted, as he had dined perhaps half a dozen times
at the house. The point in Lord Brentford's character which had more
than any other struck our hero, was the unlimited confidence which he
seemed to place in his daughter. Lady Laura seemed to have perfect
power of doing what she pleased. She was much more mistress of
herself than if she had been the wife instead of the daughter of the
Earl of Brentford,--and she seemed to be quite as much mistress of
the house.
Phineas had declared at Killaloe that Lady Laura was six feet high,
that she had red hair, that her figure was straggling, and that her
hands and feet were large. She was in fact about five feet seven
in height, and she carried her height well. There was something of
nobility in her gait, and she seemed thus to be taller than her
inches. Her hair was in truth red,--of a deep thorough redness. Her
brother's hair was the same; and so had been that of her father,
before it had become sandy with age.
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