Page:Precaution; a novel by Cooper, James Fenimore.djvu/28

16 Mr. Benfield was a bachelor of eighty, but retained the personal activity of a man of sixty. He was strongly attached to all the fashions and opinions of his youth, during which he had sat one term in parliament, having been a great beau and courtier in the commencement of the reign. A disappointment in an affair of the heart drove him into retirement, and for the last fifty years he had dwelt exclusively at a seat he owned within forty miles of Moseley Hall, the mistress of which was the only child of his only brother. In figure, he was tall and spare, very erect for his years, and he faithfully preserved in his attire, servants, carriages, and indeed everything around him, as much of the fashions of his youth as circumstances would allow: such, then, was a faint outline of the character and appearance of the old man, who, dressed in a cocked hat, bag wig, and sword, took the offered arm of John Moseley to alight from his coach.

"So," cried the old gentleman, having made good his footing on the ground, as he stopped short and stared John in the face, "you have made out to come twenty miles to meet an old cynic, have you, sir? but I thought I bid thee bring Emmy with thee."

John pointed to the window, where his sister stood anxiously watching her uncle's movements. On catching her eye he smiled kindly, and pursued his way into the house, talking to himself.

"Aye, there she is indeed; I remember now, when I was a youngster, of going with my kinsman, old Lord Gosford, to meet his sister, the Lady Juliana, when she first came from school" (this was the lady whose infidelity had driven him from the world); "and a beauty she was, indeed, something like Emmy there; only she was taller, and her eyes were black; and her hair, too, that was black; and she was not so fair as Emmy, and she was fatter, and she stooped a little—very little; oh! they are wonderfully alike though; don't you think they were, nephew?" He stopped at the door of the room, while John, who in this description could not see a resemblance, which existed nowhere but in the old man's affections, was fain to say,