Mrs Smith on Mrs Clay:

CH. 21 -

"My account states that your sister's friend, the lady now staying with you, whom I have heard you mention, came to Bath with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter as long ago as September (in short when they first came themselves), and has been staying there ever since; ***that she is a clever, insinuating, handsome woman, poor and plausible***, and altogether such, in situation and manner, as to give a general idea, among Sir Walter's acquaintance, of her meaning to be Lady Elliot, and as general a surprise that Miss Elliot should be apparently blind to the danger."

Isn't this curious? I thought Mrs Clay wasn't handsome or at least needed a Gowlands makeover according to Sir Walter, yet Mrs Smith who has known of her long, considers her handsome? It's interesting too, that Sir Walter earlier in the novel thinks no-one handsome but himself and his daughter, Elizabeth, but in Bath he seems to be able to give Anne a compliment on her returning bloom.