CHAPTER XV
Eliza wrote to her sister immediately after her arrival at St. Mary's:—
"I begin my letter after I have come up to bed, dearest Sarah, for there is so much to say, that unless I write at night, I never shall have time to say it all. This is such a beautiful place; but you hate descriptions, and so do I. We arrived an hour before dinner, and met Lord and Lady Teviot at the first lodge, when Lady Eskdale got out, and walked home with them. I wish you could have seen how pretty and happy Helen looked. Lord Eskdale and Lord Beaufort arrived just after we did, and we had not been half an hour in the house before a number of other people came. A Colonel Beaufort, a horrid man, like that Mr. Brown we used to call Ape Brown—though Colonel Beaufort is very good-looking—but he is so grand and conceited. Then, there are two Mr. Sterlings and a Sir Charles de Vere, and one or two others, and at last there came Lord and Lady Portmore, and with them a Miss Forrester, a great friend of Helen's. Don't you remember how Mrs. Duncombe used to talk of her, and say how clever she was, and that she was going to be married to somebody, I forget who, who liked somebody else? I do not like Lady Portmore at all. She came in just as if she were mistress of the house, and as if it were her place to receive the guests; and she called everybody by their names, and without their titles. 'Oh! Teviot, why did not you ask Melmoth to meet me? So, Beaufort, you are
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