It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before;
her father had found little to admire in her,
Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way – she was only Anne.
needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not;
Anne had every thing to do at once;
Her manners were open, easy, and decided, like one who had no distrust of herself, and no doubts of what to do; without any approach to coarseness, however, or any want of good humour.
Mrs Croft, though neither tall nor fat, had a squareness, uprightness, and vigour of form, which gave importance to her person.
As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away,
