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 Emmeline Joy, though not possessed of beauty, was a woman of a good deal of personal fascina tion. She had a piquant face and great vivacity. She had also her seasons of dreaminess—of remoteness from every-day concerns. She passed for an accomplished woman in the good old simple days when she was young, before the world grew critical and fault-finding, when people were still easily pleased. She could sing, and play the piano—a queer little thin-voiced instrument, having the maker's name done in mother-of-pearl, with floral ornamentations, on the lid. She could paint in water-colors, to the admiration of all beholders. She had a delightful talent for acting, and she so far succeeded in overcoming the prejudices of the Puritan community into which she had married, as to introduce private theatricals into staid old Dunbridge itself. She did none of these things well, judged by modern standards, unless it was perhaps the acting, in which she really excelled, by virtue of a remarkable power of mimicry and a spontaneity as refreshing as it was unusual. In music and painting she had no more technical facility than many of her contemporaries. But there was a touch of genius in all that she did, which made it go straight to people's hearts. Her painted flowers may have been a trifle out of drawing, but somehow she seemed to have got their fragrance into her pictures. The dear, old-fashioned tunes she played and sang were very primitive, but her touch made them