er's love could not find strength
to do. When she had children, she attended to them in great part
herself, and learnt all about their tempers, their maladies, and the
best methods of management; as they grew up she was still the best
friend they had, the Providence of their young lives who gave them both
care and justice, both love and guidance. Such a manner of life has
forced her to forget herself. When her child lay ill, perhaps dying, she
had no heart and no time to think of her own appearance, and whether
this dressing-gown was more becoming than that; and what did the doctor
think of her with her hair pushed back from her face; and what a fright
she must have looked in the morning light after her sleepless night of
watching. The world and all its petty pleasures and paltry pains faded
away in the presence of the stern tragedy of the hour; and not the
finest ball of the season seemed to be worth a thought compared to the
all-absorbing question whether her child slept after his draught and
whether he ate his food with better appetite.

And such a life, in spite of all its cares, has kept her young as well
as unselfish; we should rather say, young because unselfish. As she
comes into the room with her daughters, her kindly face unpolluted by
paint, her dress picturesque or fashionable according to her taste, but
decent in form and consistent in tone with her age, it is often
remarked that she looks more like their sister than their mother. This
is because she is in harmony with her age, and has not, therefore, put
herself in rivalry with them; and harmony is the very keystone of
beauty. Her hair may be streaked with white, the girlish firmness and
transparency of her skin has gone, the pearly clearness of her eye is
clouded, and the slender grace of line is lost, but for all that she is
beautiful, and she is intrinsically young. What she has lost in outside
material charm--in that mere _beaute da diable_ of youth--she has gained
in character and expression; and, not attempting to simulate the
attractiveness of a girl, she keeps what nature gave her--the
attractiveness of middle age. And as every epoch has its own beauty, if
woman would but learn that truth, she is as beautiful now as a matron of
fifty, because in harmony with her years, and because her beauty has
been carried on from matter to spirit, as she was when a maiden of
sixteen. This is the ideal woman of middle age, met with even yet at
times in society--t