Had Euphemia been more deserving of Constantine, Miss Beaufort
believed she would have been less reluctant to hear that she loved
him. But Mary could not avoid seeing that Miss E. Dundas possessed
little to ensure connubial comfort, if mere beauty and accidental
flights of good humor were not to be admitted into the scale. She was
weak in understanding, timid in principle, absurd in almost every
opinion she adopted; and as for love, true, dignified, respectable
love, she knew nothing of the sentiment.
Whilst Miss Beaufort meditated on this meagre schedule of her rival's
merits, the probability that even such a man as Constantine might
sacrifice himself to flattery and to splendor stung her to the soul.
The more she reflected on it, the more she conceived it possible.
Euphemia was considered a beauty of the day; her affectation of
refined prettiness pleased many, and might charm Constantine: she was
mistress of fifty thousand pounds, and did not esteem it necessary to
conceal from her favorite the empire he had acquired. Perhaps there
was generosity in this openness? If so, what might it not effect on a
grateful disposition? or, rather, (her mortified heart murmured in
the words of her aunt Dorothy,) "how might it not operate on the mind
of one of that sex, which, at the best, is as often moved by caprice
as by feeling."
Mary blushed at her adoption of this opinion; and, angry with herself
for the injustice which a lurking jealousy had excited in her to
apply to Constantine's noble nature, she resolved, whatever might be
her struggles, to promote his happiness, though even with Euphemia,
to the utmost of her power.
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