Juliet positively declined his services; but gratefully acknowledged those from which she had already, though involuntarily, profited. 'You cannot, surely,' he cried, 'have a predilection for your present species of existence? and, least of all, under the galling yoke of this spirit-breaking dame, into whose ungentle power I cannot see you fallen without losing sleep, appetite, and pleasure. How may I conjure you into better hands? How release you from such bondage? And yet, this pale, withered, stiff, meagre hag, so odious, so tyrannical, so irascible, but a few years,--in my calculation!--but a few years since,--had all the enchantment of blithe, blooming loveliness! You, who see her only in her decline, can never believe it; but she was eminently fair, gay, and charming!' Juliet looked at him, astonished. 'Her story,' he continued, 'already envelopes the memoirs of a Beauty, in her four stages of existence. During childhood, indulged, in every wish; admired where she should have been chidden, caressed where she should have been corrected; coaxed into pettishness, and spoilt into tyranny. In youth, adored, followed, and applauded till, involuntarily, rather than vainly, she believed herself a goddess. In maturity,--ah! there's the test of sense and temper in the waning beauty!--in maturity, shocked and amazed to see herself supplanted by the rising bloomers; to find that she might be forgotten, or left out, if not assiduous herself to come forward; to be consulted only upon grave and dull matters, out of the reach of her knowledge and resources; alternately mortified by involuntary negligence, and affronted by reverential respect! Such has been her maturity; such, amongst faded beauties, is the maturity of thousands. In old age,--if a lady may be ever supposed to suffer the little loves and graces to leave her so woefully in the lurch, as to permit her to know such a state;--in old age, without stores to amuse, or powers to instruct, though with a full persuasion that she is endowed with wit, because she cuts, wounds, and slashes from unbridled, though pent-up resentment, at her loss of adorers; and from a certain perverseness, rather than quickness of parts, that gifts her with the sublime art of ingeniously tormenting; with no consciousness of her own infirmities, or patience for those of others; she is dreaded by the gay, despised by the wise, pitied by the good, and shunned by all.' Then, looking at Juliet with a strong expression of surprise, 'What Will o'the Wisp,' he cried, 'has misled you into this briery thicket of brambles, nettles, and thorns? where you cannot open your mouth but you must be scratched; nor your ears, but you must be wounded; nor stir a word but you must be pricked and worried? How is it that, with the most elegant ideas, the most just perceptions upon every subject that presents itself, you have a taste so whimsical?' 'A taste? Can you, then, Sir, believe a fate like mine to have any connexion with choice?'