Lady Eltondale was arrived at the meridian of life, and no longer boasted the charms of youth, "_Elle ne fut pas plus jolie; mais elle fut toujours belle_:" and perhaps the finished polish of her manners, and matured elegance of her person, were now scarcely less attractive than the loveliness of her earlier days had been: for beautiful she once was; "Grace was in all her steps--Heav'n in her eye, In all her gestures dignity:" and, if "love" could have been added, she would have been, almost, faultless.--But a cold, selfish disposition blasted the fair promise; it was, "a frost, a chilling frost," that withered every bud of virtue! And yet she was not absolutely wicked; she could not be accused of having a _bad_ heart; it might rather be said she had no heart at all.--And with every other requisite to form perfection in a female character, this one defect neutralized all the bounteous gifts of nature--her very talents, like those of Prometheus, were perverted, and preyed on her own soul; whilst the aching void, left by the total absence of all the nameless charities of life, she had vainly endeavoured to fill up by a restless, endless passion for scheming, either for herself or others.--She would, perhaps, have shuddered at the thought of designedly laying a plan to undermine the happiness of another; yet such were the sophistical powers of her mind, that she seldom failed in sincerely persuading herself, that whatever plan she proposed to execute, was, in reality, the most desirable that could be adopted,--and, with this conviction, she had scarcely ever been known to relinquish a project she had once formed, and seldom failed, either by art or perseverance, to obtain her end. Her history was a very common one--Her father died while she was young, leaving her mother and herself a comfortable, though not a splendid provision, as all the landed property descended to her brother, Sir Henry Seymour, who was many years older than she was.