"Dead!"
"Will you please to walk up, sir? Master would like to see you."
"No, no, no."
"It will comfort him; indeed, sir, it will. He likes to talk to any one, sir, about the party that's gone."
The tears came into the old man's eyes as he thus alluded to his lost mistress, and the stranger was too much affected to notice the singular language in which the butler spoke of "the party."
After a few moments' consideration, the stranger walked up into the drawing-room, while the servant went to inform Mr. Vyner of the visit. Left to himself, and to the undisturbed indulgence of those feelings of solemn sadness by which we are always affected at the sudden death of those we know, especially of the young—shaking us as it does in the midst of our own security, and bringing terribly home the conviction of that fact which health and confidence keep in a dim obscurity, that "in the midst of life we are in death"—the stranger, whom we shall now name as Captain Heath, walked up to a miniature of the deceased, and gazed upon it in melancholy curiosity.
Captain Heath had lost a dear friend in Mrs. Vyner, with whom he had been a great favourite. To his credit be it said, that, although the handsome wife of a man much older than herself, he had never for an instant misinterpreted her kindness towards him; and this, too, although he was an officer in the Hussars. Theirs was truly and strictly a friendship between man and woman, as pure as it was firm; founded upon mutual esteem and sympathy. Some malicious whispers were, indeed, from time to time ventured on—for who can entirely escape them?—but they never gained much credence. Mrs. Vyner's whole life was an answer to calumny.
Meredith Vyner, of Wytton Hall, Devonshire, was the kindest if not the most fascinating of husbands. A book-worm and pedant, he had the follies of his tribe, and was as open to ridicule as the worst of them; but, with all his foibles, he was a kind, gentle, weak, indolent creature, who made many friends, and, what is more, retained them.
There was something remarkable though not engaging in his appearance. He looked like a dirty bishop. In his pale puffy face there was an ecclesiastical mildness, which assorted well with a large forehead and weak chin, though it brought into stronger contrast the pugnacity of a short blunt nose, the nostrils of which were somewhat elevated and garnished with long black hairs. A physiognomist would at once have pronounced him obstinate, but weak; loud in the assertion of his intentions, vacillating in their execution. His large person was curiously encased in invariable black; a tail-coat with enormous skirts, in which were pockets capacious enough to contain a stout volume; the waistcoat of black silk, liberally sprinkled with grains of snuff, reached below the waist, and almost concealed the watch-chain and its indefinite number of gold seals which dangled from the fob; of his legs he was as proud as men usually are who have an ungraceful development of calf; and hence, perhaps, the reason of his adhering to the black tights of our fathers. Shoes, large, square, and roomy, with broad silver buckles, completed his invariable and somewhat anachronical attire.
People laughed at Meredith Vyner for his dirty nails and his love of Horace (whom he was always quoting, without regard to the probability of his hearers understanding Latin—for the practice seemed involuntary); but they respected him for his integrity and goodness, and for his great, though ill-assorted, erudition. In a word, he was laughed at, but there was no malice in the laughter.