her a
pretext--announced to us that a young and accomplished widow, whose
misfortunes rendered her justly interesting, would henceforth be charged
with finishing what my dear parent had begun. My mother at first
resolutely refused obedience to my father's command, while I in vain
besought him not to interpose a stranger's authority between myself and
my beloved mother. He was inexorable alike to our tears and prayers, and
Madame Roland, who stated herself to be the widow of a colonel who had
died in India, came to take up her abode with us, in the character of
governess to myself."

"What! the same Madame Roland your father married almost immediately
after the death of your mother?"

"The same, my lord."

"Was she, then, very beautiful?"

"Tolerably so,--nothing more."

"Clever,--witty, perhaps?"

"She was a clever dissembler,--a skilful manoeuvrer; her talent went
no higher. She might be about five and twenty years of age, with
extremely light hair and nearly white eyelashes; her eyes were large,
round, and a clear blue; the expression of her countenance was humble
and gentle; and while her outward manner was attentive, even to
servility, her real disposition was as perfidious as it was unfeeling."

"And what were her acquirements?"

"Positively none at all, my lord; and I cannot conceive how my father,
who until then had been so completely a slave to the dictates of worldly
propriety, did not reflect that the utter incapacity of this woman must
shamefully proclaim the real cause of her being in the house. My mother
earnestly pointed out to him the extreme ignorance of Madame Roland; he,
however, merely replied, in a tone which admitted of no further
argument, that, competent or otherwise, the young and interesting widow
should retain the situation in his establishment in which he had placed
her. This I heard subsequently. From that instant my poor mother
comprehended the whole affair, over which she deeply grieved; regretting
less, I fancy, her husband's infidelity than the domestic unhappiness
which would result from so indecorous a _liaison_, the account of which
she feared might reach my ears."

"But, even so far as his foolish passion was concerned, it seems to me
that your father acted very unwisely in introducing this woman into his
house."

"And you would be still more at a loss to understand his conduct if you
had but known the extreme formality and circumspection of his character.
Nothing could