ation
of all external interests will detain them within the sacred precincts
of THE HOME.

Aunt Mary had had trouble with her general, but though she was no
tactician, she was herself a general. His engagement to her had only
been the first of the crushing defeats which she had inflicted upon him.
Now at last at The Towers a deathlike peace reigned. Sir John, severely
tried by rheumatism and advancing years, had, so to speak, given up his
sword.

His wife's magnanimity had provided him with what she considered
suitable amusements and occupations. He was told that he took an
interest in breeding pigs, and he, who had once ruled a province rather
larger than England, might now be seen on fine mornings tottering out,
tilted forward on his stick, making the tour of the farmyard, and
hanging over the low wall of his model pigstyes.

In Magdalen's recollections, Aunt Mary had always looked exactly the
same, the same strong, tall, robust, large-featured, handsome woman,
with black hair, and round, black, unwinking eyes, who invariably
dressed in black and wore a bonnet. Even under the cedar at The Towers
Aunt Mary wore a bonnet. When she employed herself in a majestic
gardening the sun was shaded from her Roman nose by a black satin
parasol.

There are some men and women whom it is monstrous to suppose ever were
children, ever young, ever different from what they are now. Whatever
laws of human nature may rule the birth of others, they, at any rate,
like the phoenix, sprang full grown, middle aged, in a frock coat, or a
bugled silk gown, from some charred heap of unconsenting parental ashes.

Aunt Mary was no doubt one of these.

Near her, on the edge of her chair, perhaps not so entirely on the edge
of it as at first appeared, sat Aunt Aggie. Aunt Aggie looked as if she
had been coloured by some mistake from a palette prepared to depict a
London fog.

Her eyes were greyish yellow, like her eyelashes, like her hair,--at
least her front hair,--like her eyebrows, and her complexion. She was
short and stout. She called slender people skeletons. Her gown, which
was invariably of some greyish, drabbish, neutral-tinted material,
always cocked up a little in front to show two large, flat, soft-looking
feet.

Aunt Aggie began quite narrow at the top. Her forehead was the thin edge
of the wedge, and she widened slowly as she neared the ground; the first
indication of a settlement showing in the lobes of her ears, then in her