e more sensibly. But he didn't let it trouble him over-much, for
he was always very philosophical about pain. Once, when he had a
toothache, somebody expressed surprise that he bore it with such
stoicism, and asked him jokingly for the secret. "Oh," he replied, "I
just fix my attention on my great toe, or any other part of my body,
and think how nice it is that I haven't got a toothache there."

Aunt Charlotte had meanwhile grown to have much more respect for
Austin than she had ever felt previously. He was now nearly eighteen,
and his character and mental force had developed very rapidly of late.
In spite of his inconceivable ignorance in some respects--geography,
for instance--he had shown a shrewdness for which she had been totally
unprepared, and a quiet persistence in matters where he felt that he
was right and she was wrong that had begun to impress her very
seriously. Many instances had arisen in which there had been a
struggle for the mastery between them, and in every case not only had
Austin had his own way but she had been compelled to acknowledge to
herself that the wisdom had been on his side and not on hers. It was
not so much that his reasoning powers were exceptionally acute as that
he seemed to have a mysterious instinct, a sort of sub-conscious
intuition, that never led him astray. And then there were those
baffling, inexplicable premonitions that on three occasions had
intervened to prevent some great disaster. The thought of these made
her very pensive, and now that the vicar had set her mind at rest upon
the abstract theory of invisible protectors she felt that she could
harbour speculations about them without danger to her soul's welfare.
That the power at work could scarcely emanate from the devil was now
clear even to her, timid and narrow-minded as she was. Still, with
that illogical shrinking from any tangible proof that her creed was
true that is so characteristic of the orthodox, the whole thing gave
her rather an uncomfortable sensation, and she would vastly have
preferred to believe in spiritual or angelic ministrations as a pious
opinion or casual article of faith than to have it brought home to her
in the guise of knocks and raps. There are millions like her in the
world to-day. Her religion, like everything else about her, was
conventional, though not a whit the less sincere for that.

And so it came about that she felt very much more dependent upon
Austin than Austin did on her, althou