husband, it
would have been better.

These things surprised her; but there was another matter that vexed
her. Before she had been six weeks at Manor Cross she found that the
ladies set themselves up as her tutors. It was not the Marchioness who
offended her so much as her three sisters-in-law. The one of the family
whom she had always liked best had been also liked best by Mr.
Holdenough, and had gone to live next door to her father in the Close.
Lady Alice, though perhaps a little tiresome, was always gentle and
good-natured. Her mother-in-law was too much in awe of her own eldest
daughter ever to scold anyone. But Lady Sarah could be very severe; and
Lady Susanna could be very stiff; and Lady Amelia always re-echoed what
her elder sisters said.

Lady Sarah was by far the worst. She was forty years old, and looked as
though she were fifty and wished to be thought sixty. That she was, in
truth, very good, no one either at Manor Cross or in Brotherton or any
of the parishes around ever doubted. She knew every poor woman on the
estate, and had a finger in the making of almost every petticoat worn.
She spent next to nothing on herself, giving away almost all her own
little income. She went to church whatever was the weather. She was
never idle and never wanted to be amused. The place in the carriage
which would naturally have been hers she had always surrendered to one
of her sisters when there had been five ladies at Manor Cross, and now
she surrendered again to her brother's wife. She spent hours daily in
the parish school. She was doctor and surgeon to the poor
people,--never sparing herself. But she was harsh-looking, had a harsh
voice, and was dictatorial. The poor people had become used to her and
liked her ways. The women knew that her stitches never gave way, and
the men had a wholesome confidence in her medicines, her plasters, and
her cookery. But Lady George Germain did not see by what right she was
to be made subject to her sister-in-law's jurisdiction.

Church matters did not go quite on all fours at Manor Cross. The
ladies, as has before been said, were all high, the Marchioness being
the least exigeant in that particular, and Lady Amelia the most so.
Ritual, indeed, was the one point of interest in Lady Amelia's life.
Among them there was assent enough for daily comfort; but Lord George
was in this respect, and in this respect only, a trouble to them. He
never declared himself openly, but it seemed to the