lived with him, and kept his house, while
his younger son had been brought up to assist his father in his
profession, and eventually to succeed to the practice, but he, seeing
how well his brother Stanley had got on, had a great hankering after an
unlimited sheep-run in Australia.

The Misses Phillips were not young, but they were well dressed, well
mannered, and good looking. There was a happy, prosperous, confident
air about both of the sisters, and especially about the younger of the
two. They were the darlings of their father, the first in their own set
of acquaintances, a great deal taken notice of, on account both of
their mother's social position and their father's professional talent,
by county families; successful in domestic management, successful in
society, of good understanding, and well educated, the Misses Phillips
were looked up to very much, and felt that they deserved to be so. They
were much disappointed in their brother's wife; from his letters, and
the likenesses he had sent home, they were prepared for a romantic and
interesting, as well as beautiful woman, but her want of education and
of understanding, which they soon discovered on personal acquaintance,
was most mortifying to ladies who thought they possessed both in a high
degree, and they were quite distressed at having to introduce her into
society. The husband saw and felt their coldness towards his wife,
while Mrs. Phillips filled his ears with complaints of their
uppishness, and their disagreeable ways.

Mr. Phillips had been so proud and so fond of his sisters, and had
talked so much to her about their beauty, their cleverness, and their
goodness, that she thought she too had a right to be disappointed.
Their beauty had diminished during his fourteen years' absence in
Australia; their cleverness only made her uncomfortable; and their
goodness did not seem to extend to her. What right had a couple of
ordinary-looking old maids to look down on her, a married woman of so
many years' standing, so much younger and handsomer? She liked Jane
Melville far better than either of her sisters-in-law, for, with more
real mental superiority, there was an inferiority in position that set
her at her ease.

Mr. Phillips was a little disappointed with his sisters, though he
would scarcely own it to himself. The blooming girls of twenty-one and
seventeen whom he had left were somewhat faded in the course of the
many years' absence; and the very differen