Her face
is pitted with the small-pox, but the delicacy of her features shows
that she may once have been beautiful; and she has a very fair and
well-shaped hand and arm, of which, if I mistake not, the good lady is
still a little vain.
I have had the curiosity to gather a few particulars concerning her.
She was a great belle in town, between thirty and forty years since,
and reigned for two seasons with all the insolence of beauty, refusing
several excellent offers; when, unfortunately, she was robbed of her
charms and her lovers by an attack of the small-pox. She retired
immediately into the country, where she some time after inherited an
estate, and married a baronet, a former admirer, whose passion had
suddenly revived; "having," as he said, "always loved her mind rather
than her person."
The baronet did not enjoy her mind and fortune above six months, and
had scarcely grown very tired of her, when he broke his neck in a
fox-chase, and left her free, rich, and disconsolate. She has remained
on her estate in the country ever since, and has never shown any
desire to return to town, and revisit the scene of her early triumphs
and fatal malady. All her favourite recollections, however, revert to
that short period of her youthful beauty.
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