ength in
character and success in life. The eyes were soft, dark, and brilliant,
but dreamlike and vague; the features in youth must have been regular
and beautiful, but their contour was now sharpened by the hollowness of
the cheeks and temples. The form, in the upper part, was nobly shaped,
sufficiently muscular, if not powerful, and with the long throat and
falling shoulders which always gives something of grace and dignity to
the carriage; but it was prematurely bent, and the lower limbs were thin
and weak, as is common with men who have sparely used them; they seemed
disproportioned to that broad chest, and still more to that magnificent
and spacious brow. The dress of this personage corresponded with the
aspect of his abode. The materials were those worn by the gentry, but
they were old, threadbare, and discoloured with innumerable spots and
stains. His hands were small and delicate, with large blue veins, that
spoke of relaxed fibres; but their natural whiteness was smudged with
smoke-stains, and his beard--a masculine ornament utterly out of fashion
among the younger race in King Edward's reign, but when worn by the
elder gentry carefully trimmed and perfumed--was dishevelled into all
the spiral and tangled curls displayed in the sculptured head of some
old Grecian sage or poet.

On the other side of the bed knelt a young girl of about sixteen, with a
face exquisitely lovely in its delicacy and expression. She seemed
about the middle stature, and her arms and neck, as displayed by the
close-fitting vest, had already the smooth and rounded contour of
dawning womanhood, while the face had still the softness, innocence, and
inexpressible bloom of a child. There was a strong likeness between her
and her father (for such the relationship, despite the difference of
sex and years),--the same beautiful form of lip and brow, the same rare
colour of the eyes, dark-blue, with black fringing lashes; and perhaps
the common expression, at that moment, of gentle pity and benevolent
anxiety contributed to render the resemblance stronger.

"Father, he sinks again!" said the girl.

"Sibyll," answered the man, putting his finger upon a line in a
manuscript book that he held, "the authority saith, that a patient so
contused should lose blood, and then the arm must be tightly bandaged.
Verily we lack the wherewithal."

"Not so, Father!" said the girl, and blushing, she turned aside, and
took off the partelet of lawn, upon which