It would be difficult as well as uncourteous to guess at Lady Mildred Vavasour's precise age; her dark hair has lost perhaps somewhat of its luxuriance, but little of its glossy sheen; her pale cheek--tinged with a faint colour (either by nature or art) exactly in the right place--and white brow, are still polished and smooth as Carrara marble; and her small, slight, delicate figure, with which the tiniest of hands and feet harmonize so perfectly, retains its graceful roundness of outline. Why is it that, after one brief glance--giving the lady credit for all these advantages--we feel sure that she has advanced already far into the maturity of womanhood? Perhaps, when the mind has been restless and the thoughts busy for a certain number of years, those years _will_ not be dissembled, and, however carefully the exterior may have been conserved, traces of toil, sensible, if not visible, remain. There is no short cut to Political Science any more than to Pure Mathematics; not without labour and anxiety, which must tell hereafter, can their crowns be won; and Foresight, though certainly the more useful faculty of the two, is sometimes more wearing than Memory. Now, in her own line, Lady Mildred Vavasour stood unrivalled; she was the very Talleyrand of domestic diplomacy. I do not mean to infer that she was pre-eminent among those Machiavels in miniature, who glide into supremacy over their own families imperceptibly, and maintain their position by apparent non-resistance, commanding always, while they seem to obey. In her own case such cleverness would have been wasted. She no more dreamt of interfering with any of the Squire's tastes or pursuits than he did with hers; and was perfectly content with complete freedom of action, sure of having every whim gratified. Indeed, up to the present time, her talents had been employed in singularly disinterested ways. Very, very seldom had she acted with her own advantage, or that of any one closely connected with her, in view. The position of the Vavasours was such as never to tempt them to look for aggrandizement; the Squire represented his county, as a matter of course, but there was not a particle of ambition in his nature; and her son had always steadily refused to allow his mother's talents or influence to be exercised on his behalf. But she had a vast circle of acquaintance, both male and female, and when any one of these was in a difficulty, he or she constantly resorted to Lady Mildred, sure of her counsel, if not of her co-operation. She gave one or both, not in the least because she was good-natured, but because she liked it. She liked to hold in her little white hand the threads of a dozen at once of those innocent plots and conspiracies, which are carried on so satisfactorily beneath the smooth, smiling surface of this pleasant world of ours. Granting that the means were trivial, and the end unworthy--it was almost grand to see how her