her table. Truly! well, indeed! who would have thought it! Is all
this precious time to be lavished on the matutinal repair and
beautifying of an elderly person, who never goes abroad, whom
nobody ever visits, and from whom, when she shall have done her
utmost, it were the best charity to turn one's eyes another way?

Now she is almost ready. Let us pardon her one other pause; for it
is given to the sole sentiment, or, we might better say, --heightened
and rendered intense, as it has been, by sorrow and seclusion,--to the
strong passion of her life. We heard the turning of a key in a small
lock; she has opened a secret drawer of an escritoire, and is probably
looking at a certain miniature, done in Malbone's most perfect style,
and representing a face worthy of no less delicate a pencil. It was
once our good fortune to see this picture. It is a likeness of a
young man, in a silken dressing-gown of an old fashion, the soft
richness of which is well adapted to the countenance of reverie,
with its full, tender lips, and beautiful eyes, that seem to
indicate not so much capacity of thought, as gentle and voluptuous
emotion. Of the possessor of such features we shall have a right
to ask nothing, except that he would take the rude world easily,
and make himself happy in it. Can it have been an early lover of
Miss Hepzibah? No; she never had a lover--poor thing, how could she?
--nor ever knew, by her own experience, what love technically means.
And yet, her undying faith and trust, her fresh remembrance,
and continual devotedness towards the original of that miniature,
have been the only substance for her heart to feed upon.

She seems to have put aside the miniature, and is standing again
before the toilet-glass. There are tears to be wiped off. A few
more footsteps to and fro; and here, at last,--with another pitiful