supple and flexible with an easy humour and a vigilant finesse; eyes
of a red hazel, quick but steady,--observing, piercing, dauntless eyes;
altogether a fine countenance,--would have been a very fine countenance
in a man; profile sharp, straight, clear-cut, with an expression, when
in repose, like that of a sphinx; a frame robust, not corpulent; of
middle height, but with an air and carriage that made her appear tall;
peculiarly white firm hands, indicative of vigorous health, not a vein
visible on the surface.

There she sat knitting, knitting, and I by her side, gazing now on
herself, now on her work, with a vague idea that the threads in the
skein of my own web of love or of life were passing quick through those
noiseless fingers. And, indeed, in every web of romance, the fondest,
one of the Parcae is sure to be some matter-of-fact She, Social Destiny,
as little akin to romance herself as was this worldly Queen of the Hill.

CHAPTER VII.

I have given a sketch of the outward woman of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. The
inner woman was a recondite mystery deep as that of the sphinx, whose
features her own resembled. But between the outward and the inward woman
there is ever a third woman,--the conventional woman,--such as the whole
human being appears to the world,--always mantled, sometimes masked.

I am told that the fine people of London do not recognize the title
of "Mrs. Colonel." If that be true, the fine people of London must be
clearly in the wrong, for no people in the universe could be finer than
the fine people of Abbey Hill; and they considered their sovereign had
as good a right to the title of Mrs. Colonel as the Queen of England has
to that of "our Gracious Lady." But Mrs. Poyntz herself never assumed
the title of Mrs. Colonel; it never appeared on her cards,--any more
than the title of "Gracious Lady" appears on the cards which convey the
invitation that a Lord Steward or Lord Chamberlain is commanded by
her Majesty to issue. To titles, indeed, Mrs. Poyntz evinced no
superstitious reverence. Two peeresses, related to her, not distantly,
were in the habit of paying her a yearly visit which lasted two or three
days. The Hill considered these visits an honour to its eminence. Mrs.
Poyntz never seemed to esteem them an honour to herself; never boasted
of them; never sought to show off her grand relations, nor put herself
the least out of the way to receive them. Her mode of life was free from
ostentation.