self-complacency sat on her face, and gave ease to her every action and every speech.  She never hesitated in giving her opinion; she never qualified or withdrew it when given.  She knew herself to be perfectly well-informed and perfectly well-bred.  She felt herself to be Mr. Brandon’s superior in every point—­in natural ability, in education, in acquired manner, in social position, and, of course, in moral character also, for she had no faith in the goodness of the other sex.  She saw many of their faults, and guessed at many more, and she did not see or understand their virtues; and Brandon made no pretence to being particularly good, and spoke slightingly of her favourite clergyman, who was rather too High Church in his notions to please the latitudinarian ideas of an Australian bushman.  Her connection with the county Stanleys gave her a prestige that Mr. Brandon never could have, for his family were only middle-class people, not at all intellectual or aristocratic.  Her brother was astonished to see how much more Georgiana and Harriett spoke of their relations by the mother’s side, who had never done anything for them, than those good uncles and aunts Phillipses, who had invited them for the holidays, and given them toys and books without number; but all his laughing at his sisters could not alter their views, and his own wife sided with the ladies, and was very proud of her husband’s aristocratic name and relations, though she had none of her own.

Though in all these respects Harriett Phillips was so much Mr. Brandon’s superior, she was disposed to accept of him when he asked her, as he was sure to do.  It was so difficult for her to meet with her equal, either social, intellectual, or moral; and a husband, even though an Australian, began to be looked upon as a desirable thing at her time of life.  And though Brandon was not fascinated by her, though he was not interested in her, though he felt no thrill in touching her hand, no exquisite delight in listening to her voice or her singing, he began to feel that this was to be his fate, and that the quiet, pale girl who had refused him would not make so suitable a wife for him as Harriett Phillips, after all.

He was somewhat astonished, however, when he heard from this last-named lady, about a week after Elsie Melville’s arrival, that her sister-in-law had engaged her services as lady’s-maid.  A lady’s-maid was what Mrs. Phillips had long desired to have, and now, when she saw Elsie’s excellent taste, both in dressmaking and millinery, she thought that with a few lessons in hairdressing she might suit her very nicely, and it would be quite a boon to the poor girl, whom Dr. Phillips had forbidden to return to her situation in Edinburgh.

Mr. Phillips, though he thought that a lady’s-maid was rather beyond his circumstances and his wife’s sphere, hoped such good things from her associating constantly with two such women as Jane and Elsie Melville, that he readily gave his consent.  Elsie as readily agreed to serve in this inferior capacity.  The pleasure of being near her sister was not to be refused on account of being so far subordinated to her.  She was deeply impressed with her own inferiority, and fell into her place at once.