Madam Rosamond Cavendish was, I suppose, a beauty, though after a strange and curious fashion, being seemingly dependent upon those around her for it, as a chameleon is dependent for his colour upon his surroundings.  I have seen Madam Cavendish, when praised by one she loved, or approached by the little maid, her daughter, with an outstretch of fair little arms and a coercion of dimples toward kisses, flash into such radiance of loveliness that, boy as I was, I was dazzled by her.  Then, on the other hand, I have seen her as dully opaque of any meaning of beauty as one could well be.  But she loved Captain Cavendish well, and I wot he never saw her but with that wondrous charm, since whenever he cast his eyes upon her it must have been to awaken both reflection and true life of joy in her face.  She was so small and exceeding slim that she seemed no more than a child, and she was not strong, having a quick cough ready at every breath of wind, and she rode nor walked like our English women, but lay about on cushions in the sun.  Still, when she moved, it was with such a vitality of grace and such readiness that no one, I suspect, knew how frail she was until she sickened and died the second year of my stay in Cambridge.  When I returned home I found in her stead Madam Judith Cavendish, the mother of Captain Cavendish, who had come from Huntingdonshire.  She was at that time well turned of threescore, but a woman who was, as she had always been, a power over those about her.  She looked her age, too, except for her figure, for her hair was snowy white, and the lines of her face fixed beyond influence of further smiles or tears.  My imagination has always been a mighty factor in my estimation of the characters of others, and I have often wondered how true to facts I might be, but verily it seemed to me that after Madam Cavendish arrived at Cavendish Court the influence of that great strength of character, which, when it exists in a woman, intimidates every man, no matter who he may be, made itself evident in the very king’s highway approaching Cavendish Court, and increased as the distance diminished, according to some of my mathematical rules.

There were in her no change and shifting to new lights of beauty or otherwise at the estimation of those around her; she rather controlled, as it were, all the domestic winds.  Captain Cavendish bowed before his superior on his own deck, though I believe there was much love betwixt them, and, as for the little maid, she tempered the wilfulness which was then growing with her growth by outward meekness at least.  I used to think her somewhat afraid of her grandmother, and disposed to cling for protection and mother-love to her elder sister Catherine.  Catherine, in those two years, had blossomed out her beauty; her sallowness and green pallor had become bloom, though not rosy, rather an ineffable clear white like a lily.  Her eyes, at once shy and antagonistic, had become as steady as stars in their estimation of self and