nold, "many a worse, I
can assure you. He is very fond of his lady indeed, and gives up more to
her than one would think. He is a little stern, they say, but very just
and upright; and no libertine fellow, like his brother who was
drowned--which I am sure was a providence, for if he was so bad when he
was young, what would he have been when he was old?"

"Better, perhaps," replied her mistress, with a quiet smile; "but was he
so very wicked? I never heard any evil of him."

"Oh dear me, madam! do not you know?" exclaimed the old woman; and then
came the whole story of the cotter's daughter on the hill, and how she
and her father and old Mother Danby--whom people believed to be a
witch--had persuaded or threatened Sir John Hastings into making rich
people of them.

"Persuaded or threatened Sir John Hastings!" said the lady in a tone of
doubt. "I knew him better than either of his sons; and never did I see a
man so little likely to yield to persuasion or to bow to menace;" and
she fell into a deep fit of musing, which lasted long, while the old
housekeeper rambled on from subject to subject, unlistened to, but very
well content.

Let us dwell a little on the lady, and on her character. There is always
something to interest, something to instruct, in the character of a
woman. It is like many a problem in Euclid, which seems at first sight
as plain and simple as the broad sunshine; but when we come to study it,
we find intricacies beneath which puzzle us mightily to resolve. It is a
fine, curious, delicate, complicated piece of anatomy, a woman's heart.
I have dissected many, and I know the fact. Take and lay that fibre
apart--take care, for heaven's sake! that you do not tear the one next
to it; and be sure you do not dissever the fragments which bind those
most opposite parts together! See, here lies a muscle of keen
sensibility; and there--what is that? A cartilage, hard as a nether
millstone. Look at those light, irritable nerves, quivering at the
slightest touch; and then see those tendons, firm, fixed, and powerful
as the resolution of a martyr. Oh, that wonderful piece of organization!
who can describe it accurately?

I must not pretend to do so; but I will give a slight sketch of the
being before me.

There she stands, somewhat above the usual height, but beautifully
formed, with every line rounded and flowing gracefully into the others.
There is calmness and dignity in the whole air, and in every movement;