Among the many differences which exist between the sexes this might, perhaps, be mentioned, that while it is beautiful for a man to grow old—grow old with the passage of years—a woman to retain her charm must always remain young. In a deep sense woman may be said to have but one paramount charm, youth, and when this is gone all is gone. The youthfulness of the body, of course, soon vanishes, but with any woman who can really win and retain the love of man this is not nearly so important as at first it seems. It is the youthfulness of the soul that, in the truly adorable woman, is invulnerable. It is one of the deep misfortunes of the very poor of cities that as a rule the terrible struggle with the wolf at the door is apt to sour the nature of women and turn them into crones at the age when in the more fortunate classes the true beauty of woman often begins; and even where the environment is not that of poverty, but of straitened means, it is as a rule impossible for a woman to retain this youthfulness. In the case of the Rossettis, in the early period they were in a position of straitened means. Nor was this all: the children, Gabriel alone excepted, felt themselves to be by nationality aliens. Christina, though she made only one visit to Italy, felt herself to be an Italian, and would smile when any one talked to her of the John Bullism of her brother Gabriel, and yet, with these powerful causes working against their natural elasticity of temperament, both mother and daughter retained that juvenility which Gabriel Rossetti felt to be so refreshing. So strong was it in the mother that it had a strange effect upon the mere physique, and at eighty the expression in the eyes, and, indeed, on the face throughout, retained so much of the winsomeness of youth that she was more beautiful than most young women:— 1882. My blessed mother dozing in her chair On Christmas Day seemed an embodied Love, A comfortable Love with soft brown hair Softened and silvered to a tint of dove; A better sort of Venus with an air Angelical from thoughts that dwell above; A wiser Pallas in whose body fair Enshrined a blessed soul looks out thereof. Winter brought holly then, now Spring has brought Paler and frailer snowdrops shivering; And I have brought a simple humble thought— I her devoted duteous Valentine— A lifelong thought which thrills this song I sing, A lifelong love to this dear saint of mine. Although this was not so with Christina, upon whose face ill-health worked its ravages, her temperament, as we say, remained as young as ever. The lovely relations—sometimes staid and sometimes playful—between mother and daughter, are seen throughout the book before us. But especially are they seen in one little group of poems—“The Valentines to her Mother”—in regard to which Christina left the following pencilled note:—