It gave your features the appearance of having been run through a mince-meat machine.
But what rendered the looking-glass a thing of enchantment to me was a faded green feather, tipped with scarlet, which drooped from the top of the tarnished gilt mouldings.

This feather Washington took from the plume of his three-cornered hat, and presented with his own hand to the worshipful Mistress Jocelyn the day he left Rivermouth forever.

I wish I could describe the mincing genteel air, and the ill-concealed self-complacency, with which the dear old lady related the incident.
Many a Saturday afternoon have I climbed up the rickety staircase to that dingy room, which always had a flavor of snuff about it, to sit on a stiff-backed chair and listen for hours together to Dame Jocelyn's stories of the olden time.

How she would prattle! She was bedridden--poor creature!--and had not been out of the chamber for fourteen years.
Meanwhile the world had shot ahead of Dame Jocelyn.

The changes that had taken place under her very nose were unknown to this faded, crooning old gentlewoman, whom the eighteenth century had neglected to take away with the rest of its odd traps.