riod, must have
allowed that the young and lovely Countess of Leicester had, besides her
youth and beauty, two qualities which entitled her to a place amongst
women of rank and distinction. She displayed, as we have seen in her
interview with the pedlar, a liberal promptitude to make unnecessary
purchases, solely for the pleasure of acquiring useless and showy
trifles which ceased to please as soon as they were possessed; and she
was, besides, apt to spend a considerable space of time every day in
adorning her person, although the varied splendour of her attire could
only attract the half satirical praise of the precise Janet, or an
approving glance from the bright eyes which witnessed their own beams of
triumph reflected from the mirror.

The Countess Amy had, indeed, to plead for indulgence in those frivolous
tastes, that the education of the times had done little or nothing for a
mind naturally gay and averse to study. If she had not loved to
collect finery and to wear it, she might have woven tapestry or sewed
embroidery, till her labours spread in gay profusion all over the walls
and seats at Lidcote Hall; or she might have varied Minerva's labours
with the task of preparing a mighty pudding against the time that Sir
Hugh Robsart returned from the greenwood. But Amy had no natural genius
either for the loom, the needle, or the receipt-book. Her mother had
died in infancy; her father contradicted her in nothing; and Tressilian,
the only one that approached her who was able or desirous to attend
to the cultivation of her mind, had much hurt his interest with her by
assuming too eagerly the task of a preceptor, so that he was regarded by
the lively, indulged, and idle girl with some fear and much respect, but
with little or nothing of that softer emotion which it had been his hope
and his ambition to inspire. And thus her heart lay readily open, and
her fancy became easily captivated by the noble exterior and graceful
deportment and complacent flattery of Leicester, even before he was
known to her as the dazzling minion of wealth and power.

The frequent visits of Leicester at Cumnor, during the earlier part of
their union, had reconciled the Countess to the solitude and privacy
to which she was condemned; but when these visits became rarer and more
rare, and when the void was filled up with letters of excuse, not always
very warmly expressed, and generally extremely brief, discontent and
suspicion began to haunt tho