Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/134



I already already mentioned that I had been hospitably received into the house of a Mr. Downe at Barnstaple. This gentleman was a bachelor of some forty years of age. and he had an unmarried sister living with him, who was about thirty-three or thirty-four years old. They were kindness itself, and I was as completely domesticated with them as if I had been a brother. They were in easy circumstances. Miss Downe was worth about £3000, and her brother had an estate near Minehead, worth £10,000.

The poor lady most unfortunately took a great fancy to me, and she persuaded herself that it would be greatly for the benefit of all concerned if she were to be married to me, and her brother to my intended. I should have supposed it an easy matter for any one to have fallen in love with your dear mother in those days, for she was very beautiful, her skin was delicately fair, she had a brilliant color in her cheeks, a high forehead, a remarkably intellectual expression of countenance; her bust was fine, rather inclined to embonpoint, and she had a very dignified carriage, which some persons condemned as haughty, but I always thought it peculiarly becoming to one