They were, as she explained to Mercy, her only society; and, though she was too clear-sighted not to see their faults, and not at times to be aware that she was suffering from their perverseness, she, like other people, was often compelled to tolerate what she could not mend, and to shut her eyes to disagreeable qualities when forced to live on terms of intimacy with the possessors.
On this point Maria Teresa was, perhaps, hardly inclined to make sufficient allowance for her difficulties, and insisted over and over again on the mischief which would arise to her from the habit of surrendering her judgment to these princesses.

She told her that, though far from being devoid of virtues and real merit, "they had never succeeded in making themselves loved or esteemed by either their father or the public;[3]" and she added other admonitions which, as they were avowedly suggested by reports that had reached her, may be taken as indicating some errors into which her daughter's lightness of heart had occasionally betrayed her.

She entreated her not to show an exclusive preference for the more youthful portion of her society, to the neglect of those who were older, and commonly of higher consideration; never to laugh at people or turn them into ridicule--no habit could be more injurious to herself, and indulgence in it would give reason to doubt her good-nature; it might gain her the applause of a few young people, but it would alienate a much greater number, and those the people of the most real weight and respectability.

"This is not," said the experienced and wise empress, "a trivial matter in a princess.

We live on the stage of the great world, and it is above all things essential that people should entertain a high idea of us.