She was a person easy enough to be overlooked.  She never put herself forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary’s absence caused the weight of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her.  She went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much demonstrativeness:  she was one of those people who never “come out” till they are strongly needed, and then—­ But it remained to be proved what this girl would be.

Years afterward Hilary remembered with what a curious reticence Elizabeth used to go about in those days:  how she remained as old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no fripperies of dress or flippancies of manner.  Also, that she never complained of anything; though the discomforts of her lodging-house life must have been great—­greater than her mistresses had any idea of at the time.  Slowly, out of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming that character of self-reliance and self-control, which, in all ranks, makes of some women the helpers rather than the helped, the laborers rather than the pleasure-seekers; women whose constant lot it seems to be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to endure rather than to enjoy.

Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment.  She made no acquaintances, and never asked for holidays.  Indeed she did not seem to care for any.  Her great treat was when, on a Sunday afternoon, Miss Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s; when her pleasure and gratitude always struck her mistress—­may, even soothed her, and won her from her own many anxieties.  It is such a blessing to be able to make any other human being, even for an hour or two, entirely happy.

Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth’s whole time was spent in waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail and old.  It might be that living without her child six days out of the seven was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born; or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural cause, the living in London lodgings, without even a change of air from room to room; and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all Hilary’s care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means.

For Selina’s engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, she had insisted should last six months, did not lessen expenses.  Old gowns were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to the future Mrs. Ascott of Russell Square; and though, to do her justice, she spent as little as to her self-pleasing nature was possible, still she spent something.

“It’s the last; I shall never cost you any more,” she would say, complacently; and revert to that question of absorbing interest, her trousseau, an extremely handsome one, provided liberally by Mr. Ascott.  Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon the pride of the Leaf family; yet it was inevitable.  But no personal favors would the other two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered them—­which he did not—­save a dress each for the marriage, and a card for the marriage breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take place at a hotel.