on a small jointure, in an inconspicuous house in a dull street. She
has always been a very active woman. As the wife of a country gentleman
she was a cordial hostess, loving to fill the house with visitors; and
in her own village she was a Lady Bountiful of the best kind, the eager
friend and adviser of every family in the place. Now she is old and to
a great extent invalided. But she is vigorous, upright, dignified,
imperative, affectionate, with a stately carriage and a sanguine
complexion. She is always full to the brim of interest and liveliness.
She carries on a dozen small enterprises; she is at daggers drawn with
some of her relations, and the keen partisan of others. Everything is
"astonishing" and "wonderful" and "extraordinary" that happens to her;
and it is an unceasing delight to hear her describe the smallest
things, her troubles with her servants, her family differences, the
meetings of the societies she attends, the places she visits. Her talk
is always full of anecdotes about mysterious people whose names are
familiar to me from her talk but with whom I have never come into
contact. It is impossible to forecast what circumstances may fill her
with excitement and delight. She will give you a dramatic account of a
skirmish with her Vicar about some incredibly trifling matter, or
describe with zest how she unveiled the pretentious machinations of
some undesirable relative. She is full of malice, anger,
uncharitableness, indignation; but, on the other hand, she is just as
full of compassion, goodwill, admiration, and enthusiasm. Everyone she
knows is either perfectly delightful or else entirely intolerable; and
thus she converts what would seem to many people a confined and narrow
sphere of action into a stormy and generous clash of great forces.

On this particular occasion she kept me waiting for a few minutes, and
then darted into the room with an eager apology. She had just had, she
said, very bad news. Her second son, a soldier in India, had died