Be they ever so high in station, they can be but ladies, and no more.

But almost every man who lives in the world has the happiness, let us hope, of counting a few such persons amongst his circle of acquaintance--women, in whose angelical natures, there is something awful, as well as beautiful, to contemplate; at whose feet the wildest and fiercest of us must fall down and humble ourselves;--in admiration of that adorable purity which never seems to do or to think wrong.
Arthur Pendennis had the good fortune to have a mother endowed with these happy qualities.

During his childhood and youth, the boy thought of her as little less than an angel,--as a supernatural being, all wisdom, love, and beauty.

When her husband drove her into the county town, or to the assize balls or concerts there, he would step into the assembly with his wife on his arm, and look the great folks in the face, as much as to say, "Look at that, my lord; can any of you show me a woman like that ?" She enraged some country ladies with three times her money, by a sort of desperate perfection which they found in her.

Miss Pybus said she was cold and haughty; Miss Pierce, that she was too proud for her station; Mrs.Wapshot, as a doctor of divinity's lady, would have the pas of her, who was only the wife of a medical practitioner.