d to like hearing about Grandpapa's paintings. They all did
something in the house. But I believe that their greatest advantage over
poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and
appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that
whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too
heavily on their minds.

On poor Matilda's they weighed heavily indeed. And she was not only
troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as
many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has
received far less attention from moralists); she was also tormented by
certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes
squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were
due to ill-health.

Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda's
unwillingness to "play pretty" in the drawing-room was the subject on
which she was more perverse than any other. It was a great pity that she
was not frank and confiding with her mother. The detestable trick of
small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable
for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda's.

Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her. What attention she did give,
however, made her so anxious on the subject that she took counsel with
every lady of her acquaintance, and the more she talked about poor
Matilda's condition the less leisure she had to think about it.

"It may be more mind than body, I'm afraid," said Aunt Theresa one
afternoon, on our return from some visiting in which Matilda had refused
to share. "Mrs. Minchin says she knew a girl who went out of her senses
when she was only two years older than Matilda, and it began with her
refusing to go anywhere or see any one."

Major Buller turned round on his chair with an anxious face, and a
beetle transfixed by a needle in his hand.

"It was a very shocking thing," continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her
bonnet; "for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut
his throat. I suppose it was in the family."

Major Buller turned back again, and pinned the beetle by its proper
label.

"I suppose it was," said he dryly; "but as there is no insanity in my
family or in yours that I'm aware of, Mrs. Minchin's case is not much to
the point."

"Mrs. O'Connor won't believe she's ill," sighed Aunt Theresa; "_she_
thinks it's all temper. She says her own tem