Such was--no, such was not the mistress of Ravenswood. I feel the attempted portrait is inadequate. A passing description cannot do justice to the woman any more than a passing interview. Her superficial blemishes--want of ease in her conversation, or of crinoline in her dress,--were obvious to the casual observer; but the sterling qualities of her character, her truth and honesty, her constancy of affection, her unworldly disposition, her loftiness of soul--all these, as they could only be properly appreciated by those who had known her for years, so can they only be generally and vaguely hinted at in a brief sketch like this. The great mystery was, how she came to marry Carl. Every one said she was too good for him, and he would have been the last man to deny it. Perhaps she was pleased with his simple integrity, and foresaw that he would make a most affectionate husband, though it was not in his nature to be a passionate lover. Perhaps she pardoned his awkwardness in regard for his honesty. After all, I would not claim that she was morally perfect; very few of us are. I am afraid she was rather censorious, and judged harshly of sinners; that in her own comfortable position she did not always weigh accurately the temptations of others. It is a common practice of very good and moral people to indemnify themselves for their virtue by depreciation of others; 'tis an error that lurks at the heels of Christian duty; for are we not _commanded_ to hate sin? and the transition from the abstract to the concrete is so easy. I fancy, too, she did not harmonize altogether with Mrs. Henry Benson. Indeed, the two sisters-in law made little secret of their mutual incompatibility. Clara said that Louisa was very proper and very stupid, regular as a machine, and with no fun or frolic in her--that the only man she ever had about her, her cousin Philip, was as dull as herself,--that she dressed badly, and talked bad French,--that she went to church in the morning, and gossiped in the afternoon, and was more charitable to the bodies of her inferiors than to the souls of her equals. Louisa looked down upon Clara as a worldly and frivolous little creature, who fostered her beauty to attract admirers and worried her husband to death by her caprices, who wasted her time in dancing and flirting, and her money in Parisian nick-nacks, or in giving parties to people who did not care for her. In short, the two ladies said many hard things of each other when separate, and were painfully amiable when together. But these bickerings did not greatly impair the happiness of our party at Ravenswood. The brothers loved each other as much as if they had _not_ been brothers, and had not had to divide a large family estate between them. Even their wives' quarrels could not make them quarrel.