. . .und out that she was imperious, quarrelsome, miserly--in short, a disagreeable person to have much to do with.'

"'Perhaps,' said Severin, laying his pipe on the table, and looking reflectively before him with his arms crossed; 'but could those silent, affecting funereal observances--those resigned regrets, heard only in her own heart, for the unfaithful scoundrel--have existed in any but a deep and tender nature, which must have been a stranger to the worldly infirmities which you accuse your aunt of? No doubt the bitter feeling--(how seldom can we altogether master it, hard beset as we are in this life of ours?)--may sometimes have manifested itself in her in various forms, not always very easily recognizable, and having a more or less unpleasant effect upon the old lady's surroundings; still, that yearly day of pious sorrow would have atoned, in my eyes, at all events, for any amount of shortcomings during the rest of the time.'

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