Illustrating the Laws of Attra
IT is evident to you now, that Maggie had arrived at a moment in her life which must be sidered by all prudent persons as a great opportunity for a young woman. Launched into the higher society of St Oggs, with a striking person which had the advantage of being quite unfamiliar to the majority of beholders, and with such moderate assistance of e as you have seen foreshadowed in Lucys anxious colloquy with aunt Pullet, Maggie was certainly at a arting-point in life. At Lucys first evening party, young Torry fatigued his facial muscles more than usual in order that `the dark-eyed girl there, in the er, might see him in all the additional style ferred by his eye-glass; and several young ladies went home intending to have short sleeves with black lad to plait their hair in a broad et at the back of their head - `That cousin of Miss Deanes looked so very well. In faaggie, with all her inward sciousness of a painful past and her prese of a troublesome future, was on the way to bee an object of some envy - a topic of discussion in the newly-established billiard-room, aween fair friends who had s from each other on the subject of trimmings. The Miss Guests, who associated chiefly on terms of dession with the families of St Oggs, ahe glass of fashion there, took some exception to Maggies manners. She had a way of not assenting at oo the observations current in good society and of saying that she didnt know whether those observatiorue or not which gave her an air of gaucherie and impeded the even flow of versation; but it is a fact capable of an amiable interpretation that ladies are not the worse disposed towards a new acquaintance of their own sex because she has points of inferiority. And Maggie was so entirely without those pretty airs of coquetry which have the traditional reputation of drivilemen to despair, that she won some femiy for being so iive in spite of her beaty. She had not had many advantages, poor thing! and it must be admitted there was no pretension about her: her abruptness and unevenness of manner were plainly the result of her secluded and lowly circumstances. It was only a wohat there was no tinge of vulgarity about her, sidering what the rest of poor Lucys relations were: an allusion which always made the Miss Guests shudder a little. It was not agreeable to think of any e by marriage with such people as the Gleggs and the Pullets; but it was of no use to tradict Stephen, when once he had set his mind on anything, aainly there was no possible obje to Lu herself - no one could help liking her. She would naturally desire that the Miss Guests should behave kindly to this cousin of whom she was so fond, and Stephen would make a great fuss if they were defit in civility. Uhese circumstahe invitations to Park House were not wanting, and elsewhere also, Miss Deane was too popular and too distinguished a member of society in St Oggs for any attention towards her to be ed.
Thus Maggie was introduced for the first time to the young ladys life, and knew what it was to get up in the m without any imperative reason for doing ohing more than ahis new sense of leisure and unchecked enjoyment amidst the soft-breathing airs and gardes of advang Spring, amidst the new abundanusid lingering strolls in the sunshine and delicious dreaminess of gliding on the river, could hardly be without some intoxig effe her after her years of privation; and even in the first week Maggie began to be less haunte