As Madame Beck ruled by espionage, she of course had her staff of spies; she perfectly knew the quality of the tools she used, and while she would not scruple to handle the dirtiest for a dirty occasion—­flinging this sort from her like refuse rind? after the orange has been duly squeezed—­I have known her fastidious in seeking pure metal for clean uses; and when once a bloodless and rustless instrument was found, she was careful of the prize, keeping it in silk and cotton-wool.  Yet woe be to the man or woman who relied on her one inch beyond the point where it was her interest to be trustworthy; interest was the master-key of madame’s nature—­the mainspring of her motives—­the alpha and omega of her life.  I have seen her feelings appealed to, and I have smiled in half-pity, half-scorn at the appellants.  None ever gained her ear through that channel, or swayed her purpose by that means.  On the contrary, to attempt to touch her heart was the surest way to rouse her antipathy, and to make of her a secret foe.  It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched:  it reminded her where she was impotent and dead.  Never was the distinction between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her.  While devoid of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational benevolence:  she would give in the readiest manner to people she had never seen—­rather, however, to classes than to individuals.  “Pour les pauvres” she opened her purse freely—­against the poor man, as a rule, she kept it closed.  In philanthropic schemes, for the benefit of society at large, she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow touched her:  no force or mass of suffering concentrated in one heart had power to pierce hers.  Not the agony of Gethsemane, not the death on Calvary, could have wrung from her eyes one tear.

I say again, madame was a very great and a very capable woman.  That school offered for her powers too limited a sphere:  she ought to have swayed a nation; she should have been the leader of a turbulent legislative assembly.  Nobody could have browbeaten her, none irritated her nerves, exhausted her patience, or overreached her astuteness.  In her own single person, she could have comprised the duties of a first minister and a superintendent of police.  Wise, firm, faithless, secret, crafty, passionless; watchful and inscrutable; acute and insensate—­withal perfectly decorous—­what more could be desired?

A YORKSHIRE LANDSCAPE

From ‘Shirley’

“Miss Keeldar, just stand still now, and look down at Nunneley dale and wood.”