lamented
friends, for me to enter more fully into details that might be amusing
enough under other circumstances. Whatever, however, must have been the
feelings of our host and hostess, they were never for a moment betrayed
into visible annoyance by the species of martyrdom to which they were
subjected; and the remarkably dignified, though gentle deportment of
Mrs Eleanor in particular, was not without its triumph in obtaining for
her a degree of involuntary deference, even from the coarse-minded
persons who were incapable of appreciating her real claims. Yet once (I
remember it now)--once _she was moved_ to the utterance of a reproof,
the severity of which was felt rather than understood by the vulgar mind
of Mrs Heneage, who had provoked it by some offensive comment on the
portrait of "the old lady there," as she familiarly designated the late
Mrs Devereux. "I am sure, madam, you are not aware," said the dear Mrs
Eleanor, while her sweet voice faltered with emotion, and a faint blush
suffused her venerable face,--"I am sure you cannot be aware that the
lady represented by that portrait was our dear and venerated mother, to
whose lifeless resemblance even, I should hope, no person would
knowingly allude disrespectfully, least of all in the presence of her
children." The woman to whom this mild rebuke was addressed, coloured,
fidgeted, fanned herself violently, and glancing as if half frightened
towards her husband, who frowned tremendously, stammered out something
of an apology, which was accepted with a grave and silent inclination of
the head, as Mrs Eleanor rose to lead the way into the drawing-room.

The scenes I have sketched so hastily are but samples of a long long
series of annoyances and mortifications, to which my dear friends were
from thenceforward subjected at frequent intervals, until the close of
the clouded evening of their lives; for the air of Devereux Hall was
found to be particularly beneficial to the delicate health of Mrs
Heneage, and the bloom (as she termed it) of the full-blown peonys, her
daughters, besides that Walter Heneage, jun., took especial pleasure in
thinning Mr Devereux's preserves, and insolently trespassing on those of
the neighbouring gentlemen, who submitted more patiently to the young
Cockney's inroads than they would have done, but for their regard and
respect for their venerable neighbour, whose moral thraldom to his stern
repulsive kinsman was now generally known and compassi