Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/165

 really may be proud of: you are one of nature's favourites, and one may be excused for admiring that beautiful skin.' If they could behold me now, with my teeth all gone, and with long lines in my face—not wrinkles, for I have no wrinkles when I am left quiet, and not made angry: but my face is drawn out of its composure by these wretches. I thank God that old age has come upon me unperceived. When I used to see the painted Lady H. dressed in pink and silver, with her head shaking, and jumped by her footman into her sociable, attempting to appear young, I felt a kind of horror and disgust I can't describe. I wonder how Lady Stafford dresses, now she is no longer young: but I can't fancy her grown old."

She paused, and then resumed. "I have," she said, "been under the saw" (drawing the little finger of her right hand backward and forward across the forefinger of her left) "for many years, and not a tooth but what has told; but it is God's will, and I do not repine: it is man's ingratitude that wounds me most. How many harsh answers have even you given me, when I have been telling you things for your good: it is that which hurts me."

I confessed my fault, and expressed my deep regret that I had ever caused her any pain.

She went on. "When I see people of understanding moidering away their time, losing their memory,