them. Her mode of life was free from ostentation. She had the advantage
of being a few hundreds a year richer than any other inhabitant of
the Hill; but she did not devote her superior resources to the
invidious exhibition of superior splendour. Like a wise sovereign, the
revenues of her exchequer were applied to the benefit of her subjects, and
not to the vanity of egotistical parade. As no one else on the Hill
kept a carriage, she declined to keep one. Her entertainments were
simple, but numerous. Twice a week she received the Hill, and was
genuinely at home to it. She contrived to make her parties proverbially
agreeable. The refreshments were of the same kind as those which the
poorest of her old maids of honour might proffer; but they were better of
their kind, the best of their kind,--the best tea, the best lemonade, the
best cakes. Her rooms had an air of comfort, which was peculiar to them.
They looked like rooms accustomed to receive, and receive in a friendly
way; well warmed, well lighted, card-tables and piano each in the place
that made cards and music inviting; on the walls a few old family
portraits, and three or four other pictures said to be valuable and
certainly pleasing,--two Watteaus, a Canaletti, a Weenix; plenty of
easy-chairs and settees covered with a cheerful chintz,--in the
arrangement of the furniture generally an indescribable careless elegance.
She herself was studiously plain in dress, more conspicuously free from
jewelry and trinkets than any married lady on the Hill. But I have heard
from those who were authorities on such a subject that she was never
seen in a dress of the last year's fashion. She adopted the mode as it
came out, just enough to show that she was aware it was out; but
with a sober reserve, as much as to say, "I adopt the fashion as far as
it suits myself; I do not permit the fashion to adopt me." In short,
Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was sometimes rough, sometimes coarse, always
masculine, and yet somehow or other masculine in a womanly way;
but she was never vulgar because never affected. It was impossible