her withal that a succession of lovers, or just even a repetition of
experiments, may have anything to say to a young lady's delicacy. She
felt herself a born old maid and never dreamed of a lover of her own--he
would have been dreadfully in her way; but she dreamed of love
as something in its nature essentially refined. All the same she
discriminated; it did lead to something after all, and she desired that
for Francie it shouldn't lead to a union with Mr. Flack. She looked at
such a union under the influence of that other view which she kept as
yet to herself but was prepared to produce so soon as the right occasion
should come up; giving her sister to understand that she would never
speak to her again should this young man be allowed to suppose--! Which
was where she always paused, plunging again into impressive reticence.

"To suppose what?" Francie would ask as if she were totally
unacquainted--which indeed she really was--with the suppositions of
young men.

"Well, you'll see--when he begins to say things you won't like!" This
sounded ominous on Delia's part, yet her anxiety was really but thin:
otherwise she would have risen against the custom adopted by Mr. Flack
of perpetually coming round. She would have given her attention--though
it struggled in general unsuccessfully with all this side of their
life--to some prompt means of getting away from Paris. She expressed to
her father what in her view the correspondent of the Reverberator was
"after"; but without, it must be added, gaining from him the sense of it
as a connexion in which he could be greatly worked up. This indeed was
not of importance, thanks to her inner faith that Francie would never
really do anything--that is would never really like anything--her
nearest relatives didn't like. Her sister's docility was a great comfort
to Delia, the more that she herself, taking it always for granted, was
the first to profit by it. She liked and disliked certain things much
more than her junior did either; and Francie cultivated the convenience
of her reasons, having so few of her own. They served--Delia's
reasons--for Mr. Dosson as well, so that Francie was not guilty of any
particular irreverence in regarding her sister rather than her father as
the controller of her fate. A fate was rather an unwieldy and terrible
treasure, which it relieved her that some kind person should undertake
to administer. Delia had somehow got hold of hers first--before even her
fat