She declared that, barring the fact that the maids must be of good family, beauty would win the golden apple, as it had in olden Greece.

On hearing this news, I saw the opportunity for which I had waited so long.

If beauty was to be the test, surely my cousin Frances would become a maid of honor, and once at court, if she could keep her head and her heart, the fortunes of her house were sure to rise, for the world has never known so good a beauty market as Whitehall was at that time.
There was no question about my cousin's beauty.

Would she be able to make it bring a price worthy of its quality?
To do this, she must have the cunning of the serpent, the virtue of a saint, and the courage of Roland himself.

She must not be fastidious, though she must be suspicious.