eliquiae seu potius exuviae."

It was the first Latin Irene learnt, and its quaint phrasing to this
day influenced her thoughts of mortality. Standing by her mother's
grave, she often repeated to herself "_seu potius exuviae_," and
wondered whether her father's faith in science excluded the hope of
that old-world reasoning. She would not have dared to ask him, for all
the frank tenderness of their companionship. On that subject Dr.
Derwent had no word to say, no hint to let fall. She knew only that, in
speaking of her they had lost, his voice would still falter; she knew
that he always came into this churchyard alone, and was silent,
troubled, for hours after the visit. Instinctively, too, she understood
that, though her father might almost be called a young man, and had
abounding vitality, no second wife would ever obscure to him that
sacred memory. It was one of the many grounds she had for admiring as
much as she loved him. His loyalty stirred her heart, coloured her view
of life.

The ladies had some little apprehension that their young relative,
fresh from contact with a many-sided world, might feel a dulness in
their life and their interests; but nothing of the sort entered Irene's
mind. She was intelligent enough to appreciate the superiority of these
quiet sisters to all but the very best of the acquaintances she had
made in London or abroad, and modest enough to see in their entire
refinement a correction of the excessive _sans-gene_ to which society
tempted her. They were behind the times only in the sense of escaping,
by seclusion, those modern tendencies which vulgarise. An excellent
library of their own supplied them with the essentials of culture, and
one or two periodicals kept them acquainted with all that was worth
knowing in the activity of the day. They belonged to the very small
class of persons who still read, who have mind and leisure to find
companionship in books. Their knowledge of languages passed the common;
in earlier years they had travelled, and their reminiscences fostered
the liberality which was the natural tone of their minds. To converse
familiarly with them was to discover their grasp of historical
principles, their insight into philosophic systems, their large
apprehension of world-problems. At the same time, they nurtured
jealously their intellectual preferences, differing on such points from
each other as they did from the common world. One of them would betray
an intimate knowle