CHAPTER LXXIV.

A LADY DESCRIBED WHOSE SINGLE LIFE WAS NO BLESSEDNESS EITHER TO HERSELF OR OTHERS. A VERACIOUS EPITAPH AND AN APPROPRIATE MONUMENT.

Beauty! my Lord,—'tis the worst part of woman!
A weak poor thing, assaulted every hour
By creeping minutes of defacing time;
A superficies which each breath of care
Blasts off; and every humorous stream of grief
Which flows from forth these fountains of our eyes,
Washeth away, as rain doth winter's snow.
                                                                    GOFF.

Miss Trewbody behaved with perfect propriety upon the news of her sister's death. She closed her front windows for two days; received no visitors for a week; was much indisposed, but resigned to the will of Providence, in reply to messages of condolence; put her servants in mourning, and sent for Margaret that she might do her duty to her sister's child by breeding her up under her own eye. Poor Margaret was transferred from the stone floor of her mother's cottage to the Turkey carpet of her aunt's parlour. She was too young to comprehend at once the whole evil of the exchange; but she learned to feel and understand it during years of bitter dependence, unalleviated by any hope, except that of one day seeing Leonard, the only creature on earth whom she remembered with affection.

Seven years elapsed, and during all those years Leonard was left to pass his holidays, summer and winter, at the grammar school where he had been placed at Mrs. Palmer's death: for although the master regularly transmitted with his half-yearly bill the most favourable accounts of his disposition and general conduct, as well as of his progress in learning, no wish to see the boy had ever arisen in the hearts of his nearest relations; and no feeling of kindness, or sense of decent humanity had ever induced either the foxhunter Trewman or Melicent his sister to invite him for Midsummer or Christmas. At length in the seventh year a letter announced that his school-education had been completed, and that he was elected to a scholarship at —— College, Oxford, which scholarship would entitle him to a fellowship in due course of time; in the intervening years some little assistance from his liberal benefactors would be required; and the liberality of those kind friends would be well bestowed upon a youth who bade so fair to do honour to himself, and to reflect no disgrace upon his honourable connections. The head of the family promised his part with an ungracious expression of satisfaction at thinking that “thank God there would soon be an end of these demands upon him.” Miss Trewbody signified her assent in the same amiable and religious spirit. However much her sister had disgraced her family, she replied, “please God it should never be said that she refused to do her duty.”

The whole sum which these wealthy relations contributed was not very heavy,—an annual ten pounds each: but they contrived to make their nephew feel the weight of every separate portion. The Squire's half came always with a brief note desiring that the receipt of the enclosed sum might be acknowledged without delay,—not a word of kindness or courtesy accompanied it: and Miss Trewbody never failed to administer with her remittance a few edifying remarks upon the folly of his mother in marrying beneath herself; and the improper conduct of his father in connecting himself with a woman of family, against the consent of her relations, the consequence of which was that he had left a child dependant upon those relations for support. Leonard received these pleasant preparations of charity only at distant intervals, when he regularly expected them, with his half-yearly allowance. But Margaret meantime was dieted upon the food of bitterness without one circumstance to relieve the misery of her situation.

At the time, of which I am now speaking, Miss Trewbody was a maiden lady of forty-seven, in the highest state of preservation. The whole business of her life had been to take care of a fine person, and in this she had succeeded admirably. Her library consisted of two books; Nelson's Festivals and Fasts was one, the other was “the Queen's Cabinet unlocked;” and there was not a cosmetic in the latter which she had not faithfully prepared. Thus by means, as she believed, of distilled waters of various kinds, May-dew and butter-milk, her skin retained its beautiful texture still, and much of its smoothness; and she knew at times how to give it the appearance of that brilliancy which it had lost. But that was a profound secret. Miss Trewbody, remembering the example of Jezebel, always felt conscious that she was committing a sin when she took the rouge-box in her hand, and generally ejaculated in a low voice, the Lord forgive me! when she laid it down: but looking in the glass at the same time, she indulged a hope that the nature of the temptation might be considered as an excuse for the transgression. Her other great business was to observe with the utmost precision all the punctilios of her situation in life; and the time which was not devoted to one or other of these worthy occupations, was employed in scolding her servants, and tormenting her niece. This employment, for it was so habitual that it deserved that name, agreed excellently with her constitution. She was troubled with no acrid humours, no fits of bile, no diseases of the spleen, no vapours or hysterics. The morbid matter was all collected in her temper, and found a regular vent at her tongue. This kept the lungs in vigorous health. Nay it even seemed to supply the place of wholesome exercise, and to stimulate the system like a perpetual blister, with this peculiar advantage, that instead of an inconvenience it was a pleasure to herself, and all the annoyance was to her dependants.

Miss Trewbody lies buried in the Cathedral at Salisbury, where a monument was erected to her memory worthy of remembrance itself for its appropriate inscription and accompaniments. The epitaph recorded her as a woman eminently pious, virtuous and charitable, who lived universally respected, and died sincerely lamented by all who had the happiness of knowing her. This inscription was upon a marble shield supported by two Cupids, who bent their heads over the edge, with marble tears larger than grey pease, and something of the same colour, upon their cheeks. These were the only tears which her death occasioned, and the only Cupids with whom she had ever any concern.