rself
happy with General Peel, but General Peel was after all no more than
a shade to her. But the untruth of others never made her untrue, and
she still talked of the excellence of George III. and the glories of
the subsequent reign. She had a bust of Lord Eldon, before which she
was accustomed to stand with hands closed and to weep,--or to think
that she wept.

She was a little woman, now nearly sixty years of age, with bright
grey eyes, and a strong Roman nose, and thin lips, and a sharp-cut
chin. She wore a head-gear that almost amounted to a mob-cap, and
beneath it her grey hair was always frizzled with the greatest care.
Her dress was invariably of black silk, and she had five gowns,--one
for church, one for evening parties, one for driving out, and one for
evenings at home, and one for mornings. The dress, when new, always
went to church. Nothing, she was wont to say, was too good for the
Lord's house. In the days of crinolines she had protested that she
had never worn one,--a protest, however, which was hardly true; and
now, in these later days, her hatred was especially developed in
reference to the head-dresses of young women. "Chignon" was a word
which she had never been heard to pronounce. She would talk of "those
bandboxes which the sluts wear behind their noddles;" for Miss
Stanbury allowed herself the use of much strong language. She was
very punctilious in all her habits, breakfasting ever at half-past
eight, and dining always at six. Half-past five had been her time,
till the bishop, who, on an occasion, was to be her guest, once
signified to her that such an hour cut up the day and interfered with
clerical work. Her lunch was always of bread and cheese, and they who
lunched with her either eat that,--or the bread without the cheese.
An afternoon "tea" was a thing horrible to her imagination. Tea and
buttered toast at half-past eight in the evening was the great luxury
of her life. She was as strong as a horse, and had never hitherto
known a day's illness. As a consequence of this, she did not believe
in the illness of other people,--especially not in the illness of
women. She did not like a girl who could not drink a glass of beer
with her bread and cheese in the middle of the day, and she thought
that a glass of port after dinner was good for everybody. Indeed, she
had a thorough belief in port wine, thinking that it would go far to
cure most miseries. But she could not put up with the idea that a
w