Angel by B.M. Croker

LADY AUGUSTA GASCOIGNE was the daughter of a marquis, the widow of a baronet, and our little Angel's grandmamma. She lived in a small house in Hill Street, with her daughter Eva, a plain, awkward, distressingly shy woman of seven-and-thirty, who remained on her parents' hands as a hopelessly unmarketable article, when her two younger sisters had made brilliant matches, and covered their chaperon with glory. But Eva's sole suitor was an ineligible, who had been dismissed with indignation and contumely, and as Miss Gascoigne disliked society and dress, she had subsided into genteel obscurity-her mother's housekeeper and drudge.

Lady Augusta was blessed with an iron constitution and the vigor of perpetual youth; with her slender figure, well-poised head, and active movements, she appeared at a little distance to be about thirty, albeit the remorseless Peerage stated her years to be three-score. She wore her clothes with grace, employed a French maid-well versed in "the art of beauty"-and got all her gowns in Paris. She patronized the turf, the theatre, and the most popular foreign Spas; her supper and roulette parties were renowned. She carried on her correspondence by telegram, and lived in a perpetual whirl. Her ladyship still retained the remains of considerable beauty; her nose was delicately chiselled (and came out well in her photographs); her eyes were blue, very quick, and rather closely set together; her hair, which had once been red, had faded to a pale sandy shade, and was marvellously crimped and curled-and matched. She was exceedingly vivacious, cheery, and popular, always well-dressed, always well posted in the earliest news, the newest story, and the coming scandal, and men thronged around Lady Augusta like flies about a pot of honey. She was constantly in evidence; her comings and goings, her little dinners and race parties were faithfully recorded. She was smart, her friends were smart, her turn-out was smart, and when she appeared at church parade "wearing her sables," or at the opera "wearing her diamonds," or merely driving down Sloane Street with "a bunch of violets tucked into her coat," were not all these doings chronicled in the Society papers?