The little touches, of which the woman is herself altogether unconscious, that gradually turn a love for the boy into a love for the man, are told so delicately, that it is only at last that the reader perceives what has in truth happened to the woman.

She is angry with him, grateful to him, careful over him, gradually conscious of all his worth, and of all that he does to her and hers, till at last her heart is unable to resist.

But then she is a widow;--and Beatrix has declared that her ambition will not allow her to marry so humble a swain, and Esmond has become,--as he says of himself when he calls himself "an old gentleman,"-- "the guardian of all the family," "fit to be the grandfather of you all." The character of Lady Castlewood has required more delicacy in its manipulation than perhaps any other which Thackeray has drawn.

There is a mixture in it of self-negation and of jealousy, of gratefulness of heart and of the weary thoughtfulness of age, of occasional sprightliness with deep melancholy, of injustice with a thorough appreciation of the good around her, of personal weakness,--as shown always in her intercourse with her children, and of personal strength,--as displayed when she vindicates the position of her kinsman Henry to the Duke of Hamilton, who is about to marry Beatrix;--a mixture which has required a master's hand to trace.

These contradictions are essentially feminine.