I have good reason to remember his presence there, for this was the last time I saw him.
He did not sit near me at dinner; for it was his fate to hand in a capacious old dowager, and mine to be handed in by Mr.Grimsby, a friend of his, but a man I very greatly disliked: there was a sinister cast in his countenance, and a mixture of lurking ferocity and fulsome insincerity in his demeanour, that I could not away with.

What a tiresome custom that is, by-the-by--one among the many sources of factitious annoyance of this ultra-civilised life.

If the gentlemen must lead the ladies into the dining-room, why cannot they take those they like best?
I am not sure, however, that Mr.Huntingdon would have taken me, if he had been at liberty to make his own selection.

It is quite possible he might have chosen Miss Wilmot; for she seemed bent upon engrossing his attention to herself, and he seemed nothing loth to pay the homage she demanded.

I thought so, at least, when I saw how they talked and laughed, and glanced across the table, to the neglect and evident umbrage of their respective neighbours--and afterwards, as the gentlemen joined us in the drawing-room, when she, immediately upon his entrance, loudly called upon him to be the arbiter of a dispute between herself and another lady, and he answered the summons with alacrity, and decided the question without a moment's hesitation in her favour--though, to my thinking, she was obviously in the wrong--and then stood chatting familiarly with her and a group of other ladies; while I sat with Milicent Hargrave at the opposite end of the room, looking over the latter's drawings, and aiding her with my critical observations and advice, at her particular desire.