brutal as it was--seemed
untransferable, and the title, as is known, passed at his death to his
nephew. Perhaps it may not be so generally known that, during the
enlargement of the Hall for the sixth Earl, while digging in the grounds
for the new foundations, the broken fragments of a marble statue were
unearthed. They were submitted to various antiquaries, who said that, so
far as the damaged pieces would allow them to form an opinion, the statue
seemed to be that of a mutilated Roman satyr; or if not, an allegorical
figure of Death. Only one or two old inhabitants guessed whose statue
those fragments had composed.

I should have added that, shortly after the death of the Countess, an
excellent sermon was preached by the Dean of Melchester, the subject of
which, though names were not mentioned, was unquestionably suggested by
the aforesaid events. He dwelt upon the folly of indulgence in sensuous
love for a handsome form merely; and showed that the only rational and
virtuous growths of that affection were those based upon intrinsic worth.
In the case of the tender but somewhat shallow lady whose life I have
related, there is no doubt that an infatuation for the person of young
Willowes was the chief feeling that induced her to marry him; which was
the more deplorable in that his beauty, by all tradition, was the least
of his recommendations, every report bearing out the inference that he
must have been a man of steadfast nature, bright intelligence, and
promising life.

* * * * *

The company thanked the old surgeon for his story, which the rural dean
declared to be a far more striking one than anything he could hope to
tell. An elderly member of the Club, who was mostly called the Bookworm,
said that a woman's natural instinct of fidelity would, indeed, send back
her heart to a man after his death in a truly wonderful manner
sometimes--if anything occurred to put before her forcibly the original
affection between them, and his original aspect in her eyes,--whatever
his inferiority may have been, social or otherwise; and then a general
conversation ensued upon the power that a woman has of seeing the actual
in the representation, the reality in the dream--a power which (according
to the sentimental member) men have no faculty of equalling.

The rural dean thought that such cases as that related by the surgeon
were rather an illustration of passion electrified back to life than of a
latent, true affection. Th