father's turn for whist and hazard—cobwebs
that took years to reconstruct!), she had
promoted herself to the dignity of a schoolmistress;
governing in that capacity that fine old
red-brick ladies' seminary at Paddington,
—pulled down for the railway now—
Portchester House.

'Twas there I first saw the pretty old lady:
for I had a cousin receiving her "finishing"
at Portchester House, and 'twas there—
being at the time some eight years of age—
that I first fell in love with an astonishingly
beautiful creature, with raven hair and
gazelle-like eyes, who was about seventeen, and
the oldest girl in the school. When I paid my
cousin a visit I was occasionally admitted—
being of a mild and watery disposition, and a
very little boy of my age—to the honours of
the tea table. I used to sit opposite to this
black-eyed Juno, and be fed by her with slices
of those curious open-work cross-barred jam
tarts, which are so frequently met with at
genteel tea-tables. I loved her fondly, wildly: but
she dashed my spirits to the ground one day,
by telling me not to make faces. I wonder
whether she married a duke!

The pretty old lady kept school at Portchester
House for many, many years, supporting and
comforting that fashionable fellow, her father.
She had sacrificed her youth, the firstlings
of her beauty, her love, her hopes,
everything. The gay fellow had grown a little
paralytic at last; and, becoming very old
and imbecile and harmless, had been relegated
to an upper apartment in Portchester House.
Here, for several years, he had vegetated in
a sort of semi-fabulous existence as the "old
gentleman;" very many of the younger ladies
being absolutely unaware of him; till, one
evening, a neat coffin with plated nails and
handles, arrived at Portchester House, for
somebody aged seventy-three, and the
cook remarked to the grocer's young man
that the "old gentleman" had died that
morning.

The pretty old lady continued the education
of generations of black-eyed Junos, in French,
geography, the use of the globes, and the
usual branches of a polite education, long
after her father's death. Habit is habit;
Lieutenant-Colonel Cutts had died of fever in
the Walcheren expedition—so the pretty old
lady kept school at Portchester House until she
was very, very old. When she retired, she
devised all her savings to her ugly sisters'
children; and calmly, cheerfully, placidly prepared
to lay herself down in her grave. Hers
had been a long journey and a sore
servitude; but, perhaps, something was said
to her at the end, about being a good
and faithful servant, and that it was well
done.

Such is the dim outline which the picture
in my portfolio presents to me of the pretty
old lady. Sharpened as her pretty features
were by age, the gentle touch of years of
peace of an equable mind and calm desires,
had passed lovingly over the acuities of her face,
and softened them. Wrinkles she must have
had, for the stern usurer Time will have his
bond; but she had smiled her wrinkles away,
or had laughed them into dimples. Our just,
though severe mother, Nature had rewarded
her for having worn no rouge in her youth, no
artificial flowers in her spring; and gave her
blooming roses in her December. Although the
sunset of her eyes was come and they could not
burn you up, or melt you as in the noontide,
the sky was yet pure, and the luminary sank
to rest in a bright halo: the shadows that
it cast were long, but sweet and peaceful,
—not murky and terrible. The night was
coming; but it was to be a night starlit with
faith and hope, and not a season of black
storms.

It was for this reason, I think, that being
old, feeling old, looking old, proud of being old,
and yet remaining handsome, the pretty old
lady was so beloved by all the pretty girls.
They adored her. They called her a "dear
old thing." They insisted upon trying their
new bonnets, shawls, scarfs, and similar
feminine fal-lals, upon her. They made her
the fashion, and dressed up to her. They
never made her spiteful presents of fleecy
hosiery, to guard against a rheumatism with
which she was not afflicted; or entreated her
to tie her face up when she had no toothache;
or bawled in her ear on the erroneous
assumption that she was deaf,—as girls will
do, in pure malice, when age forgets its
privileges, and apes the levity and sprightliness
of youth. Above all, they trusted
her with love-secrets (I must mention, that
though a spinster, the pretty old lady was
always addressed as Mistress). She was great
in love matters,—a complete letter-writer,
without its verbosity: as prudent as Pamela,
as tender as Amelia, as judicious as Hooker, as
dignified as Sir Charles Grandison. She could
scent a Lovelace at an immense distance, bid
Tom Jones mend his ways, reward the
constancy of an Uncle Toby, and reform a
Captain Booth. I warrant the perverse widow
and Sir Roger de Coverly would have been
brought together, had the pretty old lady
known the parties and been consulted. She
was conscientious and severe, but not
intolerant and implacable. She did not consider
every man in love a "wretch," or every
woman in love a "silly thing." She was
pitiful to love, for she had known it. She
could tell a tale of love as moving as
any told to her. Its hero died at
Walcheren.

Where shall I find pretty old ladies now-
a-days? Where are they gone,—those gentle,
kindly, yet dignified, antiquated dames,
married and single?

My young friend Adolescens comes and
tells me that I am wrong, and that there
are as many good old ladies now as of
yore. It may be so: it may be, that we
think those pleasant companionships lost