The woman's tendency to romance naturally tinctured her meditations, and thus, while they dignified, they also softened her mind.

Her sister Ellinor, younger by two years, was of a character equally gentle, but less elevated.

She looked up to her sister as a superior being.

She felt pride without a shadow of envy, at her superior and surpassing beauty; and was unconsciously guided in her pursuits and predilections, by a mind she cheerfully acknowledged to be loftier than her own.

And yet Ellinor had also her pretensions to personal loveliness, and pretensions perhaps that would be less reluctantly acknowledged by her own sex than those of her sister.