Page 560 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

drawing-room, and finish my criticism of the new poet,
Mr. Tennyson, to Mrs. Frere. Frere does not read Tenny-
son— nor anybody else. Adjourned to the drawing-room,
we chat—Mrs. Frere and I— until supper. (He eats supper.)
She is a charming companion, and when I talk my best—I
can talk, you must admit, O Familiar— her face lightens
up with an interest I rarely see upon it at other times. I feel
cooled and soothed by this companionship. The quiet re-
finement of this house, after bullocks and Bathurst, is like
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
Mrs. Frere is about five-and-twenty. She is rather be-
neath the middle height, with a slight, girlish figure. This
girlish appearance is enhanced by the fact that she has
bright fair hair and blue eyes. Upon conversation with her,
however, one sees that her face has lost much of the delicate
plumpness which it probably owned in youth. She has had
one child, born only to die. Her cheeks are thin, and her
eyes have a tinge of sadness, which speak of physical pain
or mental grief. This thinness of face makes the eyes appear
larger and the brow broader than they really are. Her hands
are white and painfully thin. They must have been plump
and pretty once. Her lips are red with perpetual fever.
Captain Frere seems to have absorbed all his wife’s vital-
ity. (Who quotes the story of Lucius Claudius Hermippus,
who lived to a great age by being constantly breathed on by
young girls? I suppose Burton— who quotes everything.)
In proportion as she has lost her vigour and youth, he has
gained strength and heartiness. Though he is at least forty
years of age, he does not look more than thirty. His face is