Miss Bagot was the only one who was really possessed of virtue and beauty among these maids of honour:  she had beautiful and regular features, and that sort of brown complexion, which, when in perfection, is so particularly fascinating, and more especially in England, where it is uncommon.  There was an involuntary blush almost continually upon her cheek, without having anything to blush for.  Lord Falmouth cast his eyes upon her:  his addresses were better received than those of Miss Hobart, and some time after Cupid raised her from the post of maid of honour to the duchess to a rank which might have been envied by all the young ladies in England.

The Duchess of York, in order to form her new court, resolved to see all the young persons that offered themselves, and, without any regard to recommendations, to choose none but the handsomest.

At the head of this new assembly appeared Miss Jennings and Miss Temple; and indeed they so entirely eclipsed the other two, that we shall speak of them only.

Miss Jennings, adorned with all the blooming treasures of youth, had the fairest and brightest complexion that ever was seen:  her hair was of a most beauteous flaxen:  there was something particularly lively and animated in her countenance, which preserved her from that insipidity which is frequently an attendant on a complexion so extremely fair.  Her mouth was not the smallest, but it was the handsomest mouth in the world.  Nature had endowed her with all those charms which cannot be expressed, and the graces had given the finishing stroke to them.  The turn of her face was exquisitely fine, and her swelling neck was as fair and as bright as her face.  In a word, her person gave the idea of Aurora, or the goddess of the spring, “such as youthful poets fancy when they love.”  But as it would have been unjust that a single person should have engrossed all the treasures of beauty without any defect, there was something wanting in her hands and arms to render them worthy of the rest:  her nose was not the most elegant, and her eyes gave some relief, whilst her mouth and her other charms pierced the heart with a thousand darts.

With this amiable person she was full of wit and sprightliness, and all her actions and motions were unaffected and easy:  her conversation was bewitching, when she had a mind to please; piercing and delicate when disposed to raillery; but as her imagination was subject to flights, and as she began to speak frequently before she had done thinking, her expressions did not always convey what she wished; sometimes exceeding, and at others falling short of her ideas.

Miss Temple, nearly of the same age, was brown compared with the other:  she had a good shape, fine teeth, languishing, eyes, a fresh complexion, an agreeable smile, and a lively air.  Such was the outward form; but it would be difficult to describe the rest; for she was simple and vain, credulous and suspicious, coquettish and prudent, very self-sufficient and very silly.