Lady Tryon was a small woman with strongly marked features, decidedly forbidding at first sight, though she possessed the art of smiling, and making herself very agreeable to her equals. She could smile especially very sweetly when she had an object to gain, or wished to be particularly agreeable; but her countenance could also assume a very different aspect when she was angry. She had bright grey eyes, which seemed to look through and through the person to whom she was speaking, while her countenance, utterly devoid of colour, was wrinkled and puckered in a curious way. She always wore rouge, and was dressed in the height of fashion. She very soon discarded her widow's ugly cap, and the gayest, of colours decked her shrivelled form, the waist almost close up under the arms, and the dress very low, a shawl being flung over her shoulders. She could laugh and enjoy a joke, but her voice was discordant, and even when she wished to be most courteous there was a want of sincerity in its tone. Lady Tryon had been maid of honour in her youth to a royal personage, and possessed a fund of anecdote about the Court, which was listened to with respectful delight by her country neighbours. She was supposed to have very literary tastes, and to have read every book in existence. The fact was that she scarcely ever looked into one, but she picked up a semblance of knowledge, and having a retentive memory was able to make the most of any information she obtained. In the same way she had got by heart a large supply of poetry, which she was very clever in quoting, and as her audience was not often very critical, any mistakes of which she might have been guilty were rarely discovered. Her chief talent was in letter-writing, and she kept up a constant epistolary correspondence with aristocratic friends. No one could more elegantly turn a compliment or express sympathy with sorrow and disappointment. She occasionally, too, penned a copy of verses. If there was not much originality in the lines, the words were well chosen, and the metre correct. She described herself as being a warm friend and a bitter enemy. The latter she had undoubtedly proved herself on more than one occasion; but the warmth of her friendship depended rather upon the amount of advantage she was likely to gain by its exhibition than from any sensation of the heart. In fact, those who knew her best had reason to doubt whether she was possessed of that article. In reality, its temperature was, without variation, down at zero. Poor Sir Harcourt, a warmhearted man, had discovered this fact before he had been very long united to her. She, however, managed from the first to rule him with a rod of iron, and to gain her own way in everything. Most fatally had she gained it in the management of her son, whom she had utterly ruined by her pernicious system of education. Sir Harcourt endeavoured to make all the excuses for her in his power.