Whilst thus usefully and agreeably, Agnes’ first winter at Rome passed away, the correspondence which Walsingham, before she had left France, had opened with Lady Glenfeld, was punctually and regularly kept up. In his first letter he had spoken of her friend in terms too gratifying to Bertha, to let her easily permit the subject to die away. After dwelling upon many other far less pleasing topics, he had, in a sort of postscript, introduced the following panegyric, affording abundant proof, that his / past prejudices against heiresses, were not of so insurmountable a nature, as necessarily to outlive the destruction of their prosperity.

‘Your Agnes's sweet countenance, whilst I could behold it, soothed my feelings, and did me more good than any thing, I can again hope to contemplate. – It seems formed to give comfort to the unhappy, and expresses more genuine indulgence of temper, more kindness of heart, and more true delicacy of character, than I have ever yet witnessed in any other human creature: – nay, there is something even beyond this in her irresistible face; there is in it an approach, to what in my visionary moments, I have often imagined must be the aspect of a guardian angel; – it seems as if no evil passion could harbour in that pure bosom; as if truth and meekness, and holy innocence had fixed their abode in the mind that animates those symmetrical and lovely features.’

In answer to this warm burst of admiration, Lady Glenfeld wrote thus: ‘He whose beau / ideal, my dear Gerald, comprises so much intellectual perfection, merits that the image created by his own brain, should, as far as is compatible with humanity, be substantiated. No man whose own mind was not full of delicacy and refinement, could delight in such a spiritualized representation.