They settled now upon the two that watched them from that oriel window.
The aged man was leaning back in a quaintly embossed oaken chair, on whose carving the arms of his family were gorgeously painted and inlaid. In youth he must have been singularly handsome, but years and care had left their vestiges on his noble features, which were thin even to emaciation. You might almost see the veins flow under the sunken temples. Scarcely a hue of life hovered on that wan cheek and lip, and his extreme paleness was heightened by a profusion of black hair, from whence time had not taken a shade or curl. Contrary to the fashion of his time, it drooped upon his shoulders, like a pall falling round the white face of a corpse.
On a low cushion beside sat his niece, at once a likeness and a contrast. Their resemblance was striking,—there was the identical outline,—though age had lost the glowing tints of youth. Both had the same mass of black hair, the high intellectual forehead, the strongly marked brow, the slightly aquiline nose: but, above all, there was the same expression, an inward and melancholy look, whenever their features were in
