Tam " pretty! At first sight this may look like conceited remark, but coming from me it truly doesn't deserve that epithet, as anyone who takes the trouble to read my confession will find, Tam pretty, and I wish I wasn't, for my fatal beauty" has been the curse of my existence and will probably make me a very miserable wwnan before L die. 1 heard my sister Angela telling Captain Howard, when he was praising his own water colour sketches the other night and apologising for his apparent vanity, that, Ruskin—or was it Carlyle?—said it was false modesty to look og if you couldn't do a thing when you could do it beautifully, and so I suppose it pretty when one's looking-glass tells one unequally hambugzing to pretend one int Qeniably that one is. ides it is just that very quality that I want to make my little moan about, for it does handicap one so dreadfully, and I would gladly be as ugly as sin if T could only be clever and interesting, When I was a child I liked hearing people say that T should grow up to be the beauty of the family. Thad the advantage of my sisters then, decidedly. T got all the petting and spoiling, the sweets and the kisses whilst they were passed over and ignored, Timust confess was delighted when I found that mother used always to take me to drive with her in the Park, and invariably mide some excuse or other for leaving her twin daughters at home. My hair always curled so perfectly, and my frocks and hats always seemed to go on just right, although Angela and Margaret somehow never looked tit for anything but the school room. They were very jealous of me then, and used to to father and complain that it wasn't air that mother should make such a favourite of me—and father comforted them by telling them they were his clever girls and ended by taking them off to the Tower of London or the South Kensington Museum,—places that I wouldn't have gone to for anything. Oh! how I wish now that Thad shared in those excursions, for T supwse that is where they picked up all their information, Tam sure it couldn't have Deen at the Convent, for we were all at school together there and I never seemed to learn anything, and was always at the bottom of the class. Of course, I was younger than my sisters, so people couldn't as bad when Theresa, my youngest sister, expect me to get on so fast, but it was just joined us. She was far ahead of me in no time, and soon began to play the v divinely that even the dear vid Reverend Mother left off calling me a little angel and transferred the title to Theresa. When I discovered that I was the dunce of the family, I actually eried about it to mother, but she told me it didn't matter at all, and added that when we all came out I should get on much better than my sisters and probably make a brilliant marriage and I. was obliged to content myself with this consoling reflection. Directly we left the Convent, Angela and Margaret were presented, and made their debit in society, much to my envy, as I knew I should have to wait a year longer at least Defore I could share their delights. after a week or two of London gaieties, 'Angela declared she was sick of them and told father she wanted to go to Girton. Father was furious at first, but as he was quite sure Angela would' never marry, Suppose he thought she had better be putin the way of what clever people cal "career," and so he gave his consent, thought T'was going to have a lovely time then, for father said I had better come out At once, so as to bea companion for Margaret. Accordingly I made my curtsy to Her Majesty with undue precipitancy, and had the pleasure of seeing myself alluded to afterwards in all the society papers as: "Lady Petre's exquisite daughter." How rived I got of that phrase and sundry others with the same meaning before: the end of the season! OF course T enjoyed myself awfully at first. Talways had more partners than I knew what to do with at all the dances we went to, and at Hurlingham and Henley and Ascot, I was perpetually followed about by a little stream of men, who paid me such outrageous compliments that T heartily wished one of them would say something disparaging to me for a change. But alas! there is proverbially safety in numbers—and few men are courageous enough to propose to a girl who is for ever surrounded by a crowd of other male worshippers. And there always was a crowd round me! The men who couldn't yet near enough to speak simply stood and gazed at me; and T often wished Teould charge places with Margaret when Tsaw her sitting by, talking earnestly to one solitary admirer about Plato's Tdeal Theory or some one else's Esoteric Buddhis. Margaret isn't nearly as blue" as Angela, but to me she seems outrageously clever. She has written heaps of things for magazines and even brought out book once. Te was published in the Pseudonym Library series, and looked awfully frivolous, T thought, for it was very thin and had an impertinent little yellow cover and was nearly all conversation—but people said it was wonderfully witty, and it made quite a furore. [thought men hated clever women, and. fancied Margaret had destroyed all her chances when her book appeared, but she had n dozen proposals at. least, on the spot, and ended by getting engaged in her first season to the hero of the haur—Lieut. General Sit Herbert Biddulph, K.C.B., who had done marvellous things in Egypt or somewhere, carried off no end of medals and won a V.C. into the bargain. [asked Algy, my brother—who is in the Horse Arullery and looks sweet in his jacket—why Margaret had done so well for herself, vhen she wasn't even good looking, and he suid: Well, you see, Mex's always 0 well groomed, she can't help looking nice and then, nowadays, fellows like a woman with something in her; they don't want tobe bored and so they don't care so much for looks by themselves." And then T Suppose he saw my crest-fallen face, for he added: "But never mind, Dolly; there are lots of men who admire you tremen-dorisly and I'd rather have a pretty wife myself, even if she couldn't say Bo toa goose!" Algy isa dear, and I'm awfully glad he feels like that—but, unfortunately Sne can't marry one's own brother—and besides the worst of it is that I like clever men, and only fools like me! Of course, foran that first season I did have some Offers in spite of the crowd, but they were all from such idiotic stupid people—all collars and hutton- with a horrid habit of dropping their final q's, and not in the least like human beings,—that, T wouldn't have picked up one of them with the end of my tongs. The nice ones—the men I admired—didn't seem to care about me at all. When we went to Scotland in the autumn, we had a big house-party and mother asked all the men I liked best. But although they hung about me in shoals and told me I played tennis and golf splendidly, and always rushed at me when we went to meet the guns at Ich tine, they never went any further, There was tone man that I really was very fond of, although he wasn't a bit elever—Siv Humphrey de Lisle, who was in the 7th Lancers and always looked so jolly playing polo. His place in Gloucesfershire is next to ours, so we used to see a great deal_of him, and I always fancied he and I were rather affinities especially as his mother, old Lady de Lisle, used to make a great fuss over me, As said before, he wasn't exactly clever; but then he wasn't a bit like all the other smart men I used to meet, he hadn't a scrap of conceit and always talked to me sensibly and didn't treat me as if T was a Palais Royal doll just unpacked. He followed me about every where for three seasons, and then Angela, actually Angela, came back from Girton having got a Triple, Second or a Double first or something, that covered her with glory, and Sir Humphrey, my Sir Humphrey, was bowled over.like a ninepin and proposed to her at once, I must say it was a great shock to me; T the would have been terrified ud Twas quite sure Angela wouldn't Imarry anyone bat a mutt old Professor. Sir Humphrey sort of apologised to me for it afterwards, which was really disgusting of him.. You see Dolly," he said, "I'm Such a duffer, I had to look out for a clever Wife and Angela has got enough brains for both of us." T didn't see, but 1 smiled sweetly at the time and wished him good Tuck most amiably. All the same, T do wish no one would call the Dolly; believe that is why, most people think a donkey. I always sign my name Dorothea Petre in full when V'm writing a Jetter, and it looks s0 imposing, but some-Tow nobody ever seems to understand that the signature belongs to me, and suppose I shall be Dolly to the end of my days, and T'm sure that is the reason no clever man wants to may me. Tf only Thad been grown up, when mother was a gil! for futher is just splendid, He's President of the Roysil Academy and he must have married mother for her Jocks, for she hasn't any brains, poor darling, and I'm the only one who' takes Miter her. Lwish I could go to China, for people tell me that looks do count for something there, and 1 believe clever women are considered rather a bore than other-ise, But when I. suggest the iden to jnothe® she looks quite horrified and says, "My dear Dolly such a terribly commerial place 1" as if T had alluded to somothing absolutely improper. She says perhaps some day I may go out to my brother in India; but T don't look forward much to that, for even my beloved Algy, who always' thought would only look out: for beauty, is just engaged to a girl he met in Calcutta, who, he says, has got a" superb intellect," so T fancy pretty women are played out even in that remote comer of the globe. And so here 1 am still, the belle' of three seasons—no nearer the desired goal than I was when I came out. I suppose I shall have to end by taking one of the Patent Automatic collared and button-holed dummies after all for my youngest sister Theresa is to make her appearance in society next year, and T couldn't endure the ignominy of not being fnarried and settled before her. Already she is a great success, for people rave about, her violin playing,-and when she comes home occasionally from the Convent, half my admirers desert me to listen to her exquisite playing. I feel better now that [ye written all this, and I hope someone will read it and be sorry for me. T've told my confessor I wish I wasn't so dreadfully pretty—he's an Oratorian and he knows Simply everything—but all the comfort he gives me is to say that "beauty is but
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