his geological researches, he
appreciated her intelligent and inquiring turn of mind. There were many
things he could throw light on which would be of service to Tom Lowrie,
and were mentioned in her letters to him. Young Dr. Vivian Phillips had
submitted to a great deal of the inevitable spoiling which an only
brother at home receives. Georgiana was very strongly attached to him;
and though Harriett had always said that she preferred Stanley, yet,
when he came back, with his uncongenial wife and large family of young
children to engross nine-tenths of his heart, her partiality for him
seemed to fade away, and she felt that Vivian was far better than the
other--at least, more clever and more English in his ideas; but Stanley
was more liberal, and had a better temper. Vivian had fits of bad
temper which no one could conquer, and his sisters found it was the
only plan to let him alone.

Vivian would never think of falling in love with his brother's
governess--he knew his own position too well for that: so that his
sisters had no fear of his being in any danger when Jane joined him in
his experiments in the laboratory, or went out with him and the
children geologising. And they were perfectly right in that surmise. He
liked Jane because he felt her to be a perfectly safe person--just a
little more interesting than a companion of his own sex, and one to
place rather more confidence in, for she had more sympathy and more
enthusiasm; but she had excellent sense, and did not appear to be at
all impressible.

Jane described the beautiful country walks she took, which she was sure
Francis or Elsie would appreciate far better than she could do. She
contrasted the activity and full life of the gentlemen of the house
with the languid idleness of Mrs. Phillips and the busy idleness of her
sisters-in-law, and thought it very unjust that all the work of the
world should be done by the one sex and so little left for the other.
She had thought the Misses Phillips superior to the Swinton young
ladies at first; but on closer acquaintance, she found it quite as
difficult to grow intimate with them. She thought she would prefer the
High Church, and almost Puseyite, tendencies of the English women to
the narrow and gloomy views of her Scotch neighbours; but her
independent turn of mind, her eager love of inquiry and her thirst for
truth, were as much cramped by the one as the other.

An enormous part of the Misses Phillips' lives was occu