her twenty-fifth birthday, and in manners, appearance, and
habits was, at any rate, as old as her age. She made no pretence to
youth, speaking of herself always as one whom circumstances required
to take upon herself age in advance of her years. She did not dress
young, or live much with young people, or correspond with other
girls by means of crossed letters; nor expect that, for her, young
pleasures should be provided. Life had always been serious with her;
but now, we may say, since the terrible tragedy in the family, it
must be solemn as well as serious. The memory of her brother must
always be upon her; and the memory also of the fact that her father
was now an impoverished man, on whose behalf it was her duty to care
that every shilling spent in the house did its full twelve pennies'
worth of work. There was a mixture in this of deep tragedy and of
little care, which seemed to destroy for her the poetry as well as
the pleasure of life. The poetry and tragedy might have gone hand
in hand together; and so might the cares and pleasures of life have
done, had there been no black sorrow of which she must be ever
mindful. But it was her lot to have to scrutinize the butcher's bill
as she was thinking of her brother's fate; and to work daily among
small household things while the spectre of her brother's corpse was
ever before her eyes.

A word must be said to explain how it had come to pass that the life
led by Miss Amedroz had been more than commonly serious before that
tragedy had befallen the family. The name of the lady who stood to
Clara in the place of an aunt has been already mentioned. When a girl
has a mother, her aunt may be little or nothing to her. But when
the mother is gone, if there be an aunt unimpeded with other family
duties, then the family duties of that aunt begin--and are assumed
sometimes with great vigour. Such had been the case with Mrs.
Winterfield. No woman ever lived, perhaps, with more conscientious
ideas of her duty as a woman than Mrs. Winterfield of Prospect Place,
Perivale. And this, as I say it, is intended to convey no scoff
against that excellent lady. She was an excellent lady--unselfish,
given to self-restraint, generous, pious, looking to find in her
religion a safe path through life--a path as safe as the facts of
Adam's fall would allow her feet to find. She was a woman fearing
much for others, but fearing also much for herself, striving to
maintain her house in godliness, hatin