Add to this her short nose, her plump cheeks that set wrinkles at
defiance, her white hair dressed in stiff little curls; and, if a doll
could grow old, Lady Lydiard, at sixty, would have been the living
image of that doll, taking life easily on its journey downwards to the
prettiest of tombs, in a burial-ground where the myrtles and roses grew
all the year round.
These being her Ladyship's personal merits, impartial history must
acknowledge, on the list of her defects, a total want of tact and taste
in her attire. The lapse of time since Lord Lydiard's death had left her
at liberty to dress as she pleased. She arrayed her short, clumsy figure
in colors that were far too bright for a woman of her ages. Her dresses,
badly chosen as to their hues, were perhaps not badly made, but were
certainly badly worn. Morally, as well as physically, it must be said of
Lady Lydiard that her outward side was her worst side. The anomalies
of her dress were matched by the anomalies of her character. There were
moments when she felt and spoke as became a lady of rank; and there were
other moments when she felt and spoke as might have become the cook in
the kitchen. Beneath these superficial inconsistencies, the great heart,
the essentially true and generous nature of the woman, only waited the
sufficient occasion to assert themselves. In the trivial intercourse
of society she was open to ridicule on every side of her. But when a
serious emergency tried the metal of which she was really made, the
people who were loudest in laughing at her stood aghast, and wondered
what had become of the familiar companion of their everyday lives.
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