Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/46

 turban, with tight little curls, and an air of formidable sprightliness. It was this sprightliness which was so much admired. "Wound up by a cup of coffee," she would talk for hours, and her friends really seem to have liked it. "Her lively imagination," writes Miss Aikin, "and the flow of eloquence it inspired, aided by one of the most melodious of voices, lent an inexpressible charm to her conversation, which was heightened by an intuitive discernment of character, rare in itself, and still more so in combination with such fertility of fancy and ardency of feeling."

This leaves little to be desired. It is not at all like the Miss Benger of Lamb's letter, with her vapid pretensions and her stupid insolence. Unhappily, we see through Lamb's eyes, and we cannot see through Miss Aikin's. Of one thing only I feel sure. Had Miss Benger, instead of airing her trivial acquirements, told Lamb that when she was a little girl, bookless and penniless, at Chatham, she used to read the open volumes in the booksellers' windows, and go back again and again, hoping that the leaves might be turned, she would have touched