More keenly alive perhaps than any of her sisters to the little ridicules that belonged to Mrs. Palmer's character, she yet saw how small was their importance, and that Mrs. Palmer was not only a better but a happier person than most of those with whom she was acquainted. She early learned to detect and to despise the paltry seeming and the miserable motive—the great risk was that a mind so trained would be too cold and too harsh in its views—but from those worst of feminine faults, she was saved by her affection for her sisters; it subdued and softened her whole nature. Perhaps she was the fondest of Mary—for Mary, languid and depressed, was most dependant on her kindness—and in the slight attentions so grateful to an invalid, she found most employment for the generosity of her active nature.
Isabella loved those best whom she served most. Besides, she had a sort of fellow-feeling with Mary, for Lady Anne's lamentations were always over her eldest and youngest daughters—the one as having survived her beauty, the other as not likely to have any to survive. A loud rap at the door made the whole party start. Louisa coloured a deep, beautiful crimson. Lady Anne exclaimed, "I am sure I shall be glad to find that any one is in town as well as myself." And Isabella, going to the window, announced that it was a dark cabriolet, and that Lady Penrhyn and her brother were getting out of it. In another moment a fashionable but haggard-looking woman came into the
