e he had a right to them. He wanted nothing that
belonged to any one else, but he could not endure that aught should
be kept from him which he believed to be his own. It may be imagined,
therefore, in what light he esteemed Lady Mason and her son, and how
he regarded their residence at Orley Farm, seeing that he firmly
believed that Orley Farm was his own, if all the truth were known.

I have already hinted that Mrs. Mason was not a delightful woman.
She had been a beauty, and still imagined that she had not lost all
pretension to be so considered. She spent, therefore, a considerable
portion of her day in her dressing-room, spent a great deal of money
for clothes, and gave herself sundry airs. She was a little woman
with long eyes, and regular eyelashes, with a straight nose, and thin
lips and regular teeth. Her face was oval, and her hair was brown.
It had at least once been all brown, and that which was now seen was
brown also. But, nevertheless, although she was possessed of all
these charms, you might look at her for ten days together, and on the
eleventh you would not know her if you met her in the streets.

But the appearance of Mrs. Mason was not her forte. She had been a
beauty; but if it had been her lot to be known in history, it was not
as a beauty that she would have been famous. Parsimony was her great
virtue, and a power of saving her strong point. I have said that she
spent much money in dress, and some people will perhaps think that
the two points of character are not compatible. Such people know
nothing of a true spirit of parsimony. It is from the backs and
bellies of other people that savings are made with the greatest
constancy and the most satisfactory results.

The parsimony of a mistress of a household is best displayed on
matters eatable;--on matters eatable and drinkable; for there is a
fine scope for domestic savings in tea, beer, and milk. And in such
matters chiefly did Mrs. Mason operate, going as far as she dared
towards starving even her husband. But nevertheless she would feed
herself in the middle of the day, having a roast fowl with bread
sauce in her own room. The miser who starves himself and dies without
an ounce of flesh on his bones, while his skinny head lies on a bag
of gold, is after all, respectable. There has been a grand passion
in his life, and that grandest work of man, self-denial. You cannot
altogether despise one who has clothed himself with rags and fed
himself with