Between herself and the Courtenay family the most sincere attachment appeared to exist. Whenever the young gentlemen and the young ladies returned home for the holidays, they invariably passed a week with her whom they almost looked upon as a mother; and Sir Henry himself, in speaking of her to his friends, seemed to take a delight in eulogising the manner in which she had performed her duty towards his children. The consequence was that his relations and acquaintances echoed these praises elsewhere; and Mrs. Martha Slingsby was quoted at the West End as the perfect model of a good and excellent woman. Thus, at the age of forty-two, Mrs. Slingsby had escaped that ordeal through which so many beautiful widows are doomed to pass: we mean, the whisperings of calumny. Not a breath had ever sullied her fame;—not a hint had ever been dropped to her disparagement. Scandal seemed to avoid her threshold as an evil spirit is supposed to recoil from the vicinity of the temple of worship. We must observe that Sir Henry Courtenay was now close upon sixty-three—thirteen years having elapsed since Mrs. Slingsby had entered his family in India. He was nevertheless a fine man, on whose brow time seemed to sit lightly, considering how great a portion of his mortal career was already run. It is true that he wore false teeth and false hair; but art had rendered those substitutes so natural in appearance, that few suspected they were really false. Elegant in his manners—endowed with a mind which had treasured up the richest stores of intellectual wealth—fascinating in his conversation—and evincing in his attire the taste of a polished gentleman, Sir Henry Courtenay was one of the brightest stars of the fashionable world—a favourite at Court—and welcome in every gay circle. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day which followed the events related in the few preceding chapters, that Mrs. Martha Slingsby was seated in her elegantly furnished drawing-room, revising the list of her usual Christmas donations to the humane, philanthropic, and religious Societies. Adelais and Rosamond Torrens were seated one on each side of her, and aiding their kind friend in her pious task. Rosamond held in her hand a memorandum-book from which she read the names of the various associations alluded to;—Mrs. Slingsby had a cash-box open before her;—and Adelais made entries, according to this lady's dictation, in another memorandum-book. The two beautiful girls appeared to be the daughters of the elegant and handsome woman who sate between them; and there was so much sweetness in the countenances of all three—so much animation, and so much modesty—that a painter would have been rejoiced to depict the group as Charity dictating to Benevolence and Mercy. "Proceed, dear Rosamond," said Mrs. Slingsby, when Adelais had finished a note in her memorandum-book.