She was a regular beauty, it seems; prettier than her sister Charlotte, and she was a pretty woman, as you may guess by looking at _our_ Charlotte, who is thought the image of her grandmother.

But Susan was one of those beauties that you don't see very often--more like a picture than flesh and blood.

The gentry used to turn round to look at her at Barngrave church, I've heard my mother say.

She was a rare one for dress, too; for she had a few hundreds left her by her father and mother, who had both of them been very well-to-do people.

The mother was daughter to William Rand, of Barngrave, a man who farmed above a thousand acres of his own land; and the father kept a carpet warehouse in Aldersgate-street." This information I received with respectful deference, and a hypocritical assumption of ignorance respecting Miss Meynell's antecedents.
Mr.Mercer paused to take breath, and then continued the story after his own rambling fashion.
"Well, my lad, what with her fine dress, and what with her pretty looks, Susan Meynell seems to have thought a little too much of herself; so that when Montagu Kingdon, of Kingdon-place, younger brother to Lord Durnsville, fell in love with her, and courted her--not exactly openly, but with the knowledge of her sister, Mrs.
Halliday--she thought it no more than natural that he should intend to make her his wife.