To every one she spoke; and to every one her voice, her manner, were kind, cordial, familiar, but familiar with a soft dignity that heightened the charm.

Ambitious not only to please but to dazzle, she breathed into her conversation all the grace and culture of her mind.

They who admired her the most were the most accomplished themselves.
Now exchanging with foreign nobles that brilliant trifling of the world in which there is often so much penetration, wisdom, and research into character; now with a kindling eye and animated cheek commenting, with poets and critics, on literature and the arts; now, in a more remote and quiet corner, seriously discussing, with hoary politicians, those affairs in which even they allowed her shrewdness and her grasp of intellect; and combining with every grace and every accomplishment a rare and dazzling order of beauty--we may readily imagine the sensation she created, and the sudden and novel zest which so splendid an Armida must have given to the tameness of society.
The whole of the next week, the party at Erpingham House was the theme of every conversation.

Each person who had been there had met the lion he had been most anxious to see.

The beauty had conversed with the poet, who had charmed her; the young debutant in science had paid homage to the great professor of its loftiest mysteries; the statesman had thanked the author who had defended his measures; the author had been delighted with the compliment of the statesman.