One saw it, above all, in her manner to the Protheros.
But Mrs.Jonathan Prothero was quite as capable of sustaining the dignity of the Philip Payne Perrys as the Welsh lady that of the Rice Rices, and a satirist might have made a clever caricature of these patriotic dames--the one thin and stiff, the other stout and stiff--as they compared their family honours.
But the lady of undoubted rank and pretension of the party is Lady Mary Nugent, who can afford to patronise or throw over-board whomsoever she will.

She is seated next to Mr Gwynne, and is lavishing a considerable share of good looks and eloquence on that gentleman.

Still in the prime of life, elegant, refined, pretty, and a skilful tactician, she is a dangerous rival of the young ladies, and is not wholly innocent of a desire to eclipse them.

She and her daughter are dressed very nearly alike, in some white and light material, and at a little distance she might pass for the fair Wilhelmina's elder sister.

A profusion of ornaments, too well arranged to appear too numerous, alone distinguish mother and daughter.