Her personal appearance was quite in keeping with this vivacity. Rather short, and inclining--but as yet only inclining--to rotundity of figure, with a peculiarly soft and clear complexion, Mrs. Damerel made a gallant battle against the hostile years. Her bright eye, her moist lips, the admirable smoothness of brow and cheek and throat, bore witness to sound health; as did the rows of teeth, incontestably her own, which she exhibited in her frequent mirth. A handsome woman still, though not of the type that commands a reverent admiration. Her frivolity did not exclude a suggestion of shrewdness, nor yet of capacity for emotion, but it was difficult to imagine wise or elevated thought behind that narrow brow. She was elaborately dressed, with only the most fashionable symbols of widowhood; rings adorned her podgy little hand, and a bracelet her white wrist. Refinement she possessed only in the society-journal sense, but her intonation was that of the idle class, and her grammar did not limp. ‘There--let me look. Oh, I think that’s an improvement--more _distingue_. And now tell me the news. How is your father?’ ‘Very bad, I’m afraid,’ said Horace, when he had regarded himself in a mirror with something of doubtfulness. ‘Nancy says that she’s afraid he won’t get well.’ ‘Oh, you don’t say that! Oh, how very sad! But let us hope. I can’t think it’s so bad as that.’ Horace sat in thought. Mrs. Damerel, her bright eyes subduing their gaiety to a keen reflectiveness, put several questions regarding the invalid, then for a moment meditated. ‘Well, we must hope for the best. Let me know to-morrow how he gets on--be sure you let me know. And if anything _should_ happen--oh, but that’s too sad; we won’t talk about it.’ Again she meditated, tapping the floor, and, as it seemed, trying not to smile. ‘Don’t be downcast, my dear boy. Never meet sorrow half-way--if you knew how useful I have found it to remember that maxim. I have gone through sad, sad things--ah! But now tell me of your own affairs. Have you seen _la petite_?’ ‘I just saw her the other evening,’ he answered uneasily. ‘Just? What does that mean, I wonder? Now you don’t look anything like so well as when you were at Scarborough. You’re worrying; yes, I know you are. It’s your nervous constitution, my poor boy. So you just saw her? No more imprudences?’ She examined his face attentively, her lips set with tolerable firmness. ‘It’s a very difficult position, you know,’ said Horace, wriggling in his chair. ‘I can’t get out of it all at once. And the truth is, I’m not sure that I wish to.’ Mrs. Damerel drew her eyebrows together, and gave a loud tap on the floor.