The Argosy — page 277: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

250 Mrs. Henry Wood. transform the whole effect, giving beauty and grace where before all had been commonplace and ordinary. But her painting she soon put aside, and when she took up her pen, her pencil was laid down for ever. | Whilst Mrs. Henry Wood was greatly indebted to her father, there is no doubt she also owed much to her mother. Two more opposite characters than Mr. and Mrs. Price could scarcely have existed, and therefore they blended into a perfect whole. Mr. Price, thoughtful and scholarly, rarely spoke merely for the sake of saying something. His wife was a small, very pretty woman, with dark, flashing eyes, light, graceful movements, and sparkling wit and conversation. She was as animated and talkative as her husband was the opposite. She lived to a very advanced age, and when I was fifteen and she was eighty-one, I paid a short visit to Malvern, and as we went together about the hills, she scarcely seemed the elder of the two. To the last she possessed all the life and freshness of youth. Our conversation naturally often turned upon my mother’s works. She was very proud of her daughter and took the liveliest and most intense interest in all she wrote. “Tt is my delight,” she would say over and over again, “‘ to shut myself into a sitting-room, perfectly alone, with her books. I then feel that Iam in the company of a great crowd of living, breathing friends. I see them and know them as much as if they actually existed ; and I feel as if they all knew me. If I were suddenly transplanted to the midst of a desert with her books, I should never be lonely or depressed.” Depressed she could never have been under any circumstances. She was then a perfect picture of an old lady, and always wore her hair in the fashion of her younger days: bdeautifully arranged in small curls one above another on her forehead and temples. It was very picturesque, and added distinction to a face that had always been charming. Before her marriage, she and her sister had been known as “the beautiful Miss Evanses.” A generation later, my mother and ery sister were universally known as “the beautiful Miss Prices.” Worcester had always been famous for its beauties, but the two Miss Prices were said to excel them all. One of her great friends was Mrs. Benson, wife of the then Master of the Temple, and one of the Canons of Worcester Cathedral ; and I have in my possession an ancient copy of Milton, given to my grandmother by Mrs. Benson, and which she passed on to me as one of her greatest treasures on the occasion of the visit to Malvern to which I have just alluded. Milton was one of her favourite poets, and she never tired of the grandeur and solemnity of his themes. CORNICE OOOKS (C(O)