led full upon the two forms before her.

The ladies were in keeping with their dress, thin, stiff and angular,
with worn and lined faces, highly rouged, and enormous long-handled
fans, and Aurelia was almost as much astonished as the child.

There was a low curtseying again, and much ceremony before it was
possible to get out of the pew, and the two ladies mounted at the door
on lofty pattens which added considerably to their height, and, attended
by a loutish-looking man in livery, who carried their books, stalked of
into the village.

Aurelia found from the communicative Molly that they were Mistress
Phoebe and Mistress Delia Treforth, kinswomen of the Belamour family,
who had in consequence a life residence rent-free in a tall thin red
square house near the churchyard, where a very gay parrot was always
to be seen in the windows. They no doubt regarded Miss Delavie and the
little Waylands as interlopers at Bowstead, and their withering glances
made Church-going a trying affair--indeed the first time that Aurelia
took little Amoret, they actually drove the sensitive child into a
sobbing fit, so that she had to be carried out, begging to know why
those ladies looked so cross at her.

The life, on the whole, was not unhappy, except for fits of homesickness
and longing for letters. The arrival of the boxes from the carrier
was the first comfort, and then at last came a thick letter from
home, franked by Sir George Herries, and containing letters from
everybody--even a few roundhand lines from Eugene.

Her father wrote at length all the excellent moral and religious essay
which had stuck in his throat at the parting; neither was Betty's letter
deficient in good advice, though she let it appear that the family were
much amused at Lady Belamour's affliction in her triad of daughters, the
secret having been hitherto so carefully kept that they supposed her to
have only one.

"It will be your Charge," wrote Betty, "so far as in you lies, to render
them not merely the Graces, as my Father terms them, but the true and
faithful Guardian to these Infant Spirits. Though their Mother has shown
no Care or heed in entrusting them to you, yet remember that it is truly
the good Providence of their Heavenly Father that has put these little
Children of His in your Charge, to receive from you the first Principles
of Religion and Morals which may mould their whole Lives; and I trust
that you will do the Work faithfully and successful