But in truth Lady Rosina chiefly made herself agreeable to the Prime Minister by never making any most distant allusion to public affairs.

It might be doubted whether she even knew that the man who paid her so much honour was the Head of the British Government as well as the Duke of Omnium.

She was a tall, thin, shrivelled-up old woman,--not very old, fifty perhaps, but looking at least ten years more,--very melancholy, and sometimes very cross.
She had been notably religious, but that was gradually wearing off as she advanced in years.

The rigid strictness of Sabbatarian practice requires the full energy of middle life.

She had been left entirely alone in the world, with a very small income, and not many friends who were in any way interested in her existence.