k doublet, silken hose, and
plume hat, would little thank us for the term! He was rather over than
under-dressed, more fine than might be expected in a country gentleman
in so lonely an island; but it was evident he loved finery, and loved to
deck his own person: his long black hair curled naturally and gracefully
over his shoulders; his eyes had more to do, during latter years, with
love and home, than with hate and adventure; consequently they sparkled
with pure and kindly feeling; and if sometimes sarcasm lighted its
beacon within their lids, it was quickly extinguished by the devoted
affection and gratitude of his right excellent heart. His figure
appeared much less disproportioned than when first we saw him taunted
into fury in his mother's hostelry by poor Jack Roupall's ill-timed
jests on his deformity: he was much stouter; and the full cavalier dress
was better calculated to hide any defects of person, than the tight
fitting vests of the bygone Roundheads, who looked to every inch of
cloth with a carefulness altogether scouted by their more heedless
successors. He had a free and open air, and a smile of dazzling
brightness. What can we say of Barbara? Female beauty is seldom
stationary; there is no use in disguising the fact, that after
twenty--dear, sweet, fascinating twenty! the freshness of the rose is
gone. We have said freshness--_not_ fragrance. Fragrance to the rose, is
what the soul is to the body--an imperishable essence, that lasts after
the petals have meekly dropped, one by one, upon their mother-earth. A
blessing upon the fragrance of sweet flowers! and a thousand blessings
upon the power that gifted their leaves with such a dowry! Oh, it
partakes of heaven to walk into the pastures and inhale the goodness of
the Lord, from the myriad field-flowers that gem the earth with beauty!
And then in sickness! What, what is so refreshing as the perfume of
sweet plants? We speak not of the glazed and costly things that come
from foreign lands, but of the English nosegay--(how we love the homely
word!)--the sweet briar, lavender, cowslip, violet, lily of the valley,
or a sprig of meadow sweet, a branch of myrtle, a tuft of primroses, or
handful of wild thyme! Such near the couch of sickness are worth a host
of powdered doctors! Again we say, a blessing on sweet flowers! And now
for one who loved them well, and learnt much wisdom "from every leaf
that clothed her native hills." Barbara was no longer the slight,