It is evening (or so it seems), and to the comfortably furnished
Victorian drawing-room a middle-aged maid-servant in cap and apron brings
a lamp, and proceeds to draw blinds and close curtains. To do this she
passes the fire-place, where before a pleasantly bright hearth sits,
comfortably sedate, an elderly lady whose countenance and attitude
suggest the very acme of genteel repose. She is a handsome woman, very
conscious of herself, but carrying the burden of her importance with an
ease which, in her own mind, leaves nothing to be desired. The
once-striking outline of her features has been rounded by good feeding to
a softness which is merely physical; and her voice, when she speaks, has
a calculated gentleness very caressing to her own ear, and a little
irritating to others who are not of an inferior class. Menials like it,
however. The room, though over-upholstered, and not furnished with any
more individual taste than that which gave its generic stamp to the great
Victorian period, is the happy possessor of some good things._ _Upon the
mantel-shelf, backed by a large mirror, stands old china in alternation
with alabaster jars, under domed shades, and tall vases encompassed by
pendant ringlets of glass-lustre. Rose-wood, walnut, and mahogany make a
well-wooded interior; and in the dates thus indicated there is a touch of
Georgian. But, over and above these mellowing features of a respectable
ancestry, the annunciating Angel of the Great Exhibition of 1851 has
spread a brooding wing. And while the older articles are treasured on
account of family association, the younger and newer stand erected in
places of honour by reason of an intrinsic beauty never previously
attained to. Through this chamber the dashing crinoline has wheeled the
too vast orb of its fate, and left fifty years after (if we may measure
the times of Heaven by the ticks of an earthly chronometer) a mark which
nothing is likely to erase. Upon the small table, where Hannah the
servant deposits the lamp, lies a piece of crochet-work. The fair hands
that have been employed on it are folded on a lap of corded silk
representing the fashions of the nineties, and the grey-haired beauty
(that once was) sits contemplative, wearing a cap of creamish lace,
tastefully arranged, not unaware that in the entering lamp-light, and
under the fire's soft glow of approval, she presents to her domestic's
eye an improving picture of gentility. It is to Miss Julia Robinson's