u should when with her,--and a
stately kind of tact that avoided skilfully much mention of
personalities on either side. But mere hospitality is not attractive,
for it may be given grudgingly, or, as in her case, from mere habit;
for Miss Sydney would never consciously be rude to any one in her own
house--or out of it, for that matter. She very rarely came in contact
with children; she was not a person likely to be chosen for a
confidante by a young girl; she was so cold and reserved, the elder
ladies said. She never asked a question about the winter fashions,
except of her dressmaker, and she never met with reverses in
housekeeping affairs, and these two facts rendered her unsympathetic
to many. She was fond of reading, and enjoyed heartily the pleasant
people she met in books. She appreciated their good qualities, their
thoughtfulness, kindness, wit, or sentiment; but the thought never
suggested itself to her mind that there were living people not far
away, who could give her all this, and more.

If calling were not a regulation of society, if one only went to see
the persons one really cared for, I am afraid Miss Sydney would soon
have been quite forgotten. Her character would puzzle many people. She
put no visible hinderance in your way; for I do not think she was
consciously reserved and cold. She was thoroughly well-bred, rich, and
in her way charitable; that is, she gave liberally to public
subscriptions which came under her notice, and to church
contributions. But she got on, somehow, without having friends; and,
though the loss of one had always been a real grief, she learned
without much trouble the way of living the lonely, comfortable, but
very selfish life, and the way of being the woman I have tried to
describe. There were occasional days when she was tired of herself,
and life seemed an empty, formal, heartless discipline. Her wisest
acquaintances pitied her loneliness; and busy, unselfish people
wondered how she could be deaf to the teachings of her good clergyman,
and blind to all the chances of usefulness and happiness which the
world afforded her; and others still envied her, and wondered to whom
she meant to leave all her money.

I began by telling you of the new street. It was suggested that it
should bear the name of Sydney; but the authorities decided finally to
compliment the country's chief magistrate, and call it Grant Place.
Miss Sydney did not like the sound of it. Her family had always bee