"I should have been very sorry had Lorraine married Lady Adelaide Merton," said Mr. Morland; "yet I always felt his admiration was
'The perfume and suppliance of a minute.'
He is too imaginative not to be attracted by beauty; but he has a depth of feeling, a poetry of thought—no mere coquette would ever satisfy."
"I do not know any one who better realises my idea of a preux chevalier than Mr. Lorraine," replied Lady Mandeville. "He is so very handsome, to begin with; and there is a romantic tone about him, which, to its original merits of fine taste and elevated feelings, adds also that of being very uncommon."
"I never yet knew a woman who did not admire him," said Mr. Morland; "and I ascribe it greatly to a certain earnestness and energy in his character. You all universally like the qualities in which you yourselves are deficient: the more you indulge in that not exactly deceit, which, in its best sense, belongs to your sex, the more you appreciate and distinguish that which is true in the character of man. Moreover, Edward has a devotion of manner, which
