e of them
spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as
quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange
fowl. What made her sing so? _They_ never sang so. Was it _proper_ to
sing with such expression, with such originality--so unlike a
school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange, it was unusual. What was
_strange_ must be _wrong_; what was _unusual_ must be _improper_.
Shirley was judged.

Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair by the
fireside. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of mine or my daughters'
kind. I object to her as my son's wife."

Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed. What he
so wished to win there was danger he might lose. He must make haste.

The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery. Sir Philip's
father--Sir Monckton--had converted it into a saloon; but still it had a
shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a window--a recess
that held one couch, one table, and a fairy cabinet--formed a room
within a room. Two persons standing there might interchange a dialogue,
and, so it were neither long nor loud, none be the wiser.

Sir Philip induced two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet. He gave
occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder ladies were conversing
together. He was pleased to remark that meantime Shirley rose to look at
the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose dark
beauty seemed as that of a flower of the south. He joined her, and began
to tell it.

There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet adorning the
recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the
rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a
prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality,
perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too,
and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck
so still you might have fancied that whisper a charm which had changed
her to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted.
Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet
gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Mr.
Sympson--Mr. Sympson only--had marked the pantomime.

That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was
meddling, as profound as he was prying, he might have found that in Sir
Philip's face whereby to correct his in