July 19.

It is just half-past ten, my Constance; the two old ladies have gone
to bed. I am getting on very well, on the whole, although I had the
misfortune to keep them waiting three-quarters of an hour for
breakfast this morning. It was so beautiful out of doors, and I was
so happy roaming in field and wood,--happy with the happiness
sunshine can lay atop of the greatest sorrow,--that I stayed out
till nearly ten o'clock. I had taken some milk and bread in the
kitchen before starting, not realising that breakfast here is a
solemn meal. Poor old souls! they were too polite to begin without
me, and I found them positively drooping with hunger.

All the rancour that I had harboured in my heart this many a year
against my father's stepmother has vanished into thin air. One
glance at the old lady's delicate weak face, at her diffident eyes
and nervous fingers, dispelled once and forever any preconceived
idea that she might have helped him in his ardent difficult boyhood,
stood between him and his father in his day of disgrace. Had she
been a woman of mettle, I could never have forgiven her the neutral
part she played; but she stands there cleared by her very impotence.

I think she was nervous of meeting me, last night; she said
something confused about my poor papa, about her husband's severity,
adding that she was sorry not to have known my mamma, but supposed I
must be like her, as I looked quite the foreigner with my black
eyes. Her whole manner towards me is almost painful in its humility;
this morning she begged me to let her live with me, and die in this
house, saying she did not care to go and live with her son; upon
which I of course assured her that she must still consider
everything her own, and the scene ended in kisses and a
pocket-handkerchief.

There is something very touching about an old woman's hand; I felt
myself much more moved than the occasion warranted when she held me
with her trembling fingers, moving them nervously up and down, so
that I felt the small weak bones under the skin, all soft,
full-veined, and wrinkled.

Her sister, Caroline Seymour, is younger, probably not more than
sixty, and very active. She has a bright, bird-like face, over which
flits from time to time a sad little gleam of lost beauty. Her
fingers are always busy, and the beads in her cap bob up and down
incessantly as she bends over her fancy-work. Poor old souls--poor
old children!