portraits.
One represents her as a little girl, with a long waist and hoop,
holding a kitten in her arms, and ogling the spectator out of the
corners of her eyes, as if she could not turn her head. In another, we
find her in the freshness of youthful beauty, when she was a
celebrated belle, and so hard-hearted as to cause several unfortunate
gentlemen to run desperate and write bad poetry. In another, she is
depicted as a stately dame, in the maturity of her charms; next to the
portrait of her husband, a gallant colonel in full-bottomed wig and
gold-laced hat, who was killed abroad; and, finally, her monument is
in the church, the spire of which may be seen from the window, where
her effigy is carved in marble, and represents her as a venerable dame
of seventy-six.

In like manner, I have followed some of the family great men through a
series of pictures, from early boyhood to the robe of dignity, or
truncheon of command; and so on by degrees, until they were garnered
up in the common repository, the neighbouring church.

There is one group that particularly interested me. It consisted of
four sisters, of nearly the same age, who flourished about a century
since, and, if I may judge from their portraits, were extremely
beautiful. I can imagine what a scene of gayety and romance this old
mansion must have been, when they were in the heyday of their charms;
when they passed like beautiful visions through its halls, or stepped
daintily to music in the revels and dances of the cedar gallery; or
printed, with delicate feet, the velvet verdure of these lawns. How
must they have been looked up to with mingled love, and pride, and
reverence by the old family servants; and followed with almost painful
admiration by the aching eyes of rival admirers! How must melody, and
song, and tender serenade, have breathed about these courts, and their
echoes whispered to the loitering tread of lovers! How must these very
turrets have made the hearts of the young galliards thrill, as they
first discerned them from afar, rising from among the trees, and
pictured to themselves the beauties casketed like gems within these
walls! Indeed, I have discovered about the place several faint records
of this reign of love and romance, when the Hall was a kind of Court
of Beauty.

Several of the old romances in the library have marginal notes
expressing sympathy and approbation, where there are long speeches
extolling ladies' charms, or protesting e