To all the rest of the family she had a heart of stone.

Since her second marriage they had lost three children; but, so far as she was concerned, each of them went down into a tearless grave.

She had once been handsome; but her beauty, like her son's, was severe and disagreeable.

There is, however, such a class of beauty, and it is principally successful with men who have a penchant for overcoming difficulties, because it is well known that the fact of conciliating or subduing it is justly considered no ordinary achievement.

A great number of our old maids may trace their solitude and their celibacy to the very questionable gift of such beauty, and the dispositions which usually accompany it.