Ludicrous as was throughout the day the deportment of these incongruous personages, the remembrance of it is, even now, too painful, as connected with the distress and humiliated feelings of my lamented friends, for me to enter more fully into details that might be amusing enough under other circumstances. Whatever, however, must have been the feelings of our host and hostess, they were never for a moment betrayed into visible annoyance by the species of martyrdom to which they were subjected; and the remarkably dignified, though gentle deportment of Mrs Eleanor in particular, was not without its triumph in obtaining for her a degree of involuntary deference, even from the coarse-minded persons who were incapable of appreciating her real claims. Yet once (I remember it now)--once _she was moved_ to the utterance of a reproof, the severity of which was felt rather than understood by the vulgar mind of Mrs Heneage, who had provoked it by some offensive comment on the portrait of "the old lady there," as she familiarly designated the late Mrs Devereux. "I am sure, madam, you are not aware," said the dear Mrs Eleanor, while her sweet voice faltered with emotion, and a faint blush suffused her venerable face,--"I am sure you cannot be aware that the lady represented by that portrait was our dear and venerated mother, to whose lifeless resemblance even, I should hope, no person would knowingly allude disrespectfully, least of all in the presence of her children." The woman to whom this mild rebuke was addressed, coloured, fidgeted, fanned herself violently, and glancing as if half frightened towards her husband, who frowned tremendously, stammered out something of an apology, which was accepted with a grave and silent inclination of the head, as Mrs Eleanor rose to lead the way into the drawing-room.
The scenes I have sketched so hastily are but samples of a long long series of annoyances and mortifications, to which my dear friends were from thenceforward subjected at frequent intervals, until the close of the clouded evening of their lives; for the air of Devereux Hall was found to be particularly beneficial to the delicate health of Mrs Heneage, and the bloom (as she termed it) of the full-blown peonys, her daughters, besides that Walter Heneage, jun., took especial pleasure in thinning Mr Devereux's preserves, and insolently trespassing on those of the neighbouring gentlemen, who submitted more patiently to the young Cockney's inroads than they would have done, but for their regard and respect for their venerable neighbour, whose moral thraldom to his stern repulsive kinsman was now generally known and compassionated, as the fatal cause became gradually, and at last strongly suspected. Some attempts were made by myself and others to invite the confidence of Mr Devereux; but from all allusion to that mysterious influence so visibly exercised over him, he shrank with a morbid sensitiveness which made it impossible to proceed, without seriously offending; and when I last conferred on the subject with Mrs Eleanor, she requested me, with tears, to desist from all farther interposition, "for, alas!" said the dear lady, "all such attempts are, I am convinced, hopeless, and only inflict additional pain on my beloved brother, even exciting in him a degree of irritability, of which his mild spirit was till lately unsusceptible." My late observations of the change in Mr Devereux's once equable temper, but too well corroborated the qualified and reluctant hint thus drawn from his devoted sister; and to me it was obvious, likewise, that the mental powers of my venerable friend, always more characterised by kindliness of nature, than by admixture of the "sterner stuff," which goes to the composition of moral strength, had been for some time yielding to the weight of some intolerable burden, and that as years and infirmities grew upon him, his natural timidity became almost shyness, and so helped to preclude him from the benefit of good offices which many were ready to render him, had the least opening on his part encouraged them to solicit greater confidence.