There is something very touching about an old woman's hand; I felt
myself much more moved than the occasion warranted when she held me
with her trembling fingers, moving them nervously up and down, so
that I felt the small weak bones under the skin, all soft,
full-veined, and wrinkled.
Her sister, Caroline Seymour, is younger, probably not more than
sixty, and very active. She has a bright, bird-like face, over which
flits from time to time a sad little gleam of lost beauty. Her
fingers are always busy, and the beads in her cap bob up and down
incessantly as she bends over her fancy-work. Poor old souls--poor
old children! I think my grandfather must have led them a life;
there is a peacefulness upon them that suggests deliverance. He has
been dead just five weeks.
But the old house will see quiet days enough now. I have wandered
all over it, and find it a beautiful place in itself, although it is
so stuffed with wool-work, vile china, gildings, wax flowers, and
indescribable mantel-piece atrocities, that there is not a simple or
restful corner anywhere. Yet I find myself touched by its very
hideousness, when I think that it probably looked even so, smelt
even so stale and sweet, in the days of my dear father's boyhood.
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