Mr Devereux's manners and habits were those of refined elegance, his tastes and opinions nice even to fastidiousness; and his perceptions acute on some points to a degree of sickliness. His very person was cast as if for an appropriate mould to enshrine this fine frame of moral organisation. Small, delicate, beautifully proportioned, with hands and feet of almost feminine moulding--while those of Cousin Heneage!----How have I seen the slender fingers of my dear old friend shrink from the vice-like grasp of that coarse bony hand, that looked capable of crushing it to atoms, together with the large mourning ring on the little finger, the oval of which, set with diamonds, encircled a groundwork of fair silky hair, bearing the device of an urn and a weeping willow, in small brilliants.
During the last few years of Mr Devereux's life, it became too evident to his old and true friends that, notwithstanding his ill-concealed repugnance to Cousin Heneage, the man had by some unaccountable means obtained an extraordinary influence over him--a baneful influence, that by degrees superseded that mild persuasive power hitherto exercised so beneficially for Mr Devereux, by the faithful companion of his life--the tenderest of sisters. His affection for her was evidently unabated. His tender solicitude for her, as the growing infirmities of advanced life rendered her more feeble and delicate, was peculiarly affecting, from the circumstances of his own age, and more evident decay, and from the expression of anxious sadness with which he often regarded her. What, then, was the surprise of their mutual friends, when the wife of Mr Heneage Devereux accompanied her husband in one of his now frequent visits to the Hall, and was received by Mr Devereux as an invited guest!
Cousin Heneage had promoted this lady from the superintendence of his kitchen to that of his family, and the honours of a lawful wife, but he did not deem it requisite to notify the forming of so respectable a connection to the then surviving parents of Mr Devereux; neither did the birth of some half-score promising babes, with whom he was presented in yearly succession, form part of the formal communications addressed at stated periods to his kinsman at the Hall. And when he occasionally presented himself in person, no allusion was ever made on either side to the lady or her progeny, till the time I mentioned, about three years preceding the death of my venerable friend. Imagine, then, the consternation of Mrs Eleanor, when her brother, with an abruptness of manner very different from his usual address, requested her to prepare herself for the reception of Mrs Heneage Devereux, who, with her husband and three elder children, a son and two daughters, between the ages of fifteen and one-and-twenty, would arrive the day following, to make some stay at the Hall. It so happened that I went over to pay a visit to my friends on the morning of this strange communication, and was ushered into Mrs Eleanor's morning room, just as her brother left it, passing me with a hurried excuse, and in evident agitation. I found the sister flushed, and trembling with surprise and pain; and it was in vain that she endeavoured to welcome me with her usual serenity, and the kind sweet smile that was wont to light up her benevolent countenance at sight of those she loved and valued: when I took her hand with the inquiring look of affectionate concern it was impossible not to feel at the thought that any distressful circumstance should wound the heart of that gentle and heavenly-minded creature, the tears gushed from her eyes, and with a tremulous tone, she related to me the short and peremptory communication just made to her by her brother.