Lady Delamere still possessed great beauty; and the charm that never dies, the charm of fascination of manner and of air, defied the inroads which time makes on mere personal beauty. She was one of those very few women, who unite to feminine gentleness the qualities ascribed to a masculine mind. At the time she married, her husband's affairs were so much involved, that nothing but the utmost self-denial could possibly retrieve them: and she entered into his plans of retrenchment with an alacrity and vigour, which proved her to be a wife indeed; not the play-thing of an hour, to deck the board, or gratify the vanity of the possessor, but a companion, a friend, a helpmate, one who in retirement possessed resources that could enliven and cheer the solitary hour: who knew she was loved, and felt she deserved to be so, with that security of honest pride, which the consciousness of desert never fails to impart in married life, and yet whose refinement and delicacy of feeling never lost the elegancies of polished manners, because there were no novel objects to excite a sickly appetite for admiration. To please is certainly the peculiar attribute and business of woman, in every relation of life; and those who neglect to foster and keep alive this power, reject one of the greatest means which Providence has placed in their hands to effect mighty operations of good. But there is a false and spurious kind of pleasing which must not be confounded with the true. Every woman will know how to distinguish these in her own conscience. When the wish to please is a mere gratification of vanity, when it lives always beyond the circle of her own hearth, and dies as soon as it is called upon for exercise within domestic walls; then, indeed, it may be known for what it is: but when, as in Lady Delamere's case, this virtue shone most splendidly confined to the sphere of home, its price was above rubies; in short it might truly be said of her, "the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her." At the time when Lord Delamere was in the greatest difficulties, he did not, as too many do, fly to a foreign country, to continue the life of self-indulgence which he could no longer maintain in his own; he did not make it an excuse for forsaking his patrimony, and the seat of his ancestors, that he could not live there in that splendour which he had formerly done; but with a spirit of true pride he said: "the land of my forefathers with bread and water, rather than banishment and luxuries." He made no secret of his poverty; and it was a means of clothing him with honour: for with patience in his solitude he found content, and with content all things. His self-denial enabled him to be generous to others: and the very act of living on his estates, gave bread to hundreds. Lady Delamere went hand in hand with him in all his plans; and they pursued, for some years, with untiring step, the path of duty which they had marked out.