[A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett]@TWC D-Link bookA Lady of Quality CHAPTER V--"Not I," said she 4/18
She cast her eyes upon him and returned it with a grace and condescension which struck the beholders dumb with admiring awe.
To some of the people of a commoner sort he was a stranger, but all connected with the gentry knew he was Sir John Oxon, who was staying at Eldershawe Park with his relative, whose estate it was. How Mistress Clorinda contrived to manage it no one was aware but herself, but after a few appearances at church she appeared at other places.
She was seen at dinners at fine houses, and began to be seen at routs and balls.
Where she was seen she shone, and with such radiance as caused matchmaking matrons great dismay, and their daughters woeful qualms.
Once having shone, she could not be extinguished or hidden under a bushel; for, being of rank and highly connected through mother as well as father, and playing her cards with great wit and skill, she could not be thrust aside. At her first hunt ball she set aflame every male breast in the shire, unmasking such a battery of charms as no man could withstand the fire of. Her dazzling eye, her wondrous shape, the rich music of her laugh, and the mocking wit of her sharp saucy tongue were weapons to have armed a dozen women, and she was but one, and in the first rich tempting glow of blooming youth. She turned more heads and caused more quarrels than she could have counted had she sat up half the night.
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