Nay, the doing so does but stamp them the more plainly with that horrid name from which they would so fain escape.

Their plea is for mercy--'Have pity on me, have pity on me; put up with me but for one other short twelve months; and then, if then I shall still have failed, I will be content to vanish from the world for ever.' When did such plea for pity from one woman ever find real entrance into the heart of another?
On such terms, however, the Misses Neverbend were content to follow Mrs.Val to the Chiswick flower-show, and to feed on the crumbs which might chance to fall from the rich table of Miss Golightly; to partake of broken meat in the shape of cast-off adorers, and regale themselves with lukewarm civility from the outsiders in the throng which followed that adorable heiress.
And yet the Misses Neverbend were quite as estimable as the divine Clementina, and had once been, perhaps, as attractive as she is now.

They had never waltzed, it is true, as Miss Golightly waltzes.

It may be doubted, indeed, whether any lady ever did.

In the pursuit of that amusement Ugolina was apt to be stiff and ungainly, and to turn herself, or allow herself to be turned, as though she were made of wood; she was somewhat flat in her figure, looking as though she had been uncomfortably pressed into an unbecoming thinness of substance, and a corresponding breadth of surface, and this conformation did not assist her in acquiring a graceful flowing style of motion.