ther's manuscript many times over, he had learned to know his
kinswoman long before he saw her,--to know, at least, the lady, young,
beautiful, and wilful, of half a century since, with whom he now became
acquainted in the decline of her days. When cheeks are faded and eyes
are dim, is it sad or pleasant, I wonder, for the woman who is a beauty
no more, to recall the period of her bloom! When the heart is withered,
do the old love to remember how it once was fresh and beat with warm
emotions? When the spirits are languid and weary, do we like to think
how bright they were in other days, the hope how buoyant, the sympathies
how ready, the enjoyment of life how keen and eager? So they fall--the
buds of prime, the roses of beauty, the florid harvests of summer,--fall
and wither, and the naked branches shiver in the winter.

"And that was a beauty once!" thinks George Warrington, as his aunt,
in her rouge and diamonds, comes in from her rout, "and that ruin was
a splendid palace. Crowds of lovers have sighed before those decrepit
feet, and been bewildered by the brightness of those eyes." He
remembered a firework at home, at Williamsburg, on the King's birthday,
and afterwards looking at the skeleton-wheel and the sockets of the
exploded Roman candles. The dazzle and brilliancy of Aunt Beatrice's
early career passed before him, as he thought over his grandsire's
journals. Honest Harry had seen them, too, but Harry was no bookman,
and had not read the manuscript very carefully: nay, if he had, he would
probably not have reasoned about it as his brother did, being by no
means so much inclined to moralising as his melancholy senior.

Mr. Warrington thought that there was no cause why he should tell his
aunt how intimate he was with her early history, and accordingly held
his peace upon that point. When their meal was over, she pointed with
her cane to her escritoire, and bade her attendant bring the letter
which lay under the inkstand there; and George, recognising the
superscription, of course knew the letter to be that of which he had
been the bearer from home.

"It would appear by this letter," said the old lady, looking hard at her
nephew, "that ever since your return, there have been some differences
between you and my sister."

"Indeed? I did not know that Madam Esmond had alluded to them," George
said.

The Baroness puts a great pair of glasses upon eyes which shot fire and
kindled who knows how many passions in ol