Yet her not marrying had been somewhat a surprise; for she had been attractive in her day, handsome and agreeable in society.  But perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye of the opposite sex had discovered the cloven foot; since, though she had received various promising attentions, poor Selina had never had an offer.  Nor, fortunately, had she ever been known to care for any body; she was one of those women who would have married as a matter of course, but who never would have been guilty of the weakness of falling in love.  There seemed small probability of shipping her off, to carry into a new household the restlessness, the fretfulness, the captious fault-finding with others, the readiness to take offence at what was done and said to herself, which made poor Selina Leaf the unacknowledged grief and torment of her own.

Her two sisters sat silent.  What was the use of talking?  It would be only going ever and over again the old thing; trying to ease and shift a little the long familiar burden which they knew must be borne.  Nearly every household has, near or remote, some such burden, which Heaven only can lift off or help to bear.  And sometimes, looking round the world outside, these two congratulated themselves, in a half sort of way, that theirs was as light as it was; that Selina was after all, a well-meaning well-principled woman, and, in spite of her little tempers, really fond of her family, as she truly was, at least as fond as a nature which has its centre in self can manage to be.

Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, into her eldest sister’s pale face, where year by year the lines were deepening, and saw how every agitation such as the present shook her more and more—­she who ought to have a quiet life and a cheerful home, after so many hard years—­then Hilary, fierce in the resistance of her youth, felt as if what she could have borne for herself she could not bear for Johanna, and at the moment, sympathized with Ascott in actually “hating” Aunt Selina.

“Where is that boy?  He ought to be spoken to,” Johanna said, at length, rising wearily.

“I have spoken to him; I gave him a good scolding.  He is sorry, and promises never to be so rude again.”

“Oh no; not till the next time,” replied Miss Leaf. hopelessly.  “But Hilary.” with a sudden consternation, “what are we to do about Elizabeth?”

The younger sister had thought of that.  She had turned over in her mind all the pros and cons, the inevitable “worries” that would result from the presence of an additional member of the family, especially one from whom the family skeleton could not be hid, to whom it was already only too fatally revealed.