sake of the climate. She was of delicate health, and constantly
threatened by the hereditary disease that had left her the last of her
generation, and she had the fastidiousness of an invalid. She was full
of generous impulses which she mistook for virtues; but the presence
of some object at once charming and worthy was necessary to rouse
these impulses. She had been prosperously married when very young, and
as a pretty American widow she had wedded in second marriage at Naples
one of those Englishmen who have money enough to live at ease in Latin
countries; he was very fond of her, and petted her. Having no children
she might long before have thought definitely of poor Henry's little
girl, as she called Lydia, but she had lived very comfortably
indefinite in regard to her ever since the father's death. Now and
then she had sent the child a handsome present or a sum of money.
She had it on her conscience not to let her be wholly a burden to her
grandfather; but often her conscience drowsed. When she came to South
Bradfield, she won the hearts of the simple family, which had been
rather hardened against her, and she professed an enthusiasm for
Lydia. She called her pretty names in Italian, which she did not
pronounce well; she babbled a great deal about what ought to be done
for her, and went away without doing anything; so that when a letter
finally came, directing Lydia to be sent out to her in Venice, they
were all surprised, in the disappointment to which they had resigned
themselves.

Mrs. Erwin wrote an epistolary style exasperatingly vacuous and
diffuse, and, like many women of that sort, she used pencil instead of
ink, always apologizing for it as due now to her weak eyes, and now to
her weak wrist, and again to her not being able to find the ink. Her
hand was full of foolish curves and dashes, and there were no spaces
between the words at times. Under these conditions it was no light