nd other
disorders; she herself sat on an ordinary chair of the bedside species,
to which by this time she had become used. Their sewing, when they did
any, was strictly indispensable; if nothing demanded the needle, both
preferred a book. Alice, who had never been a student in the proper
sense of the word, read for the twentieth time a few volumes in her
possession--poetry, popular history, and half a dozen novels such as
the average mother of children would have approved in the governess's
hands. With Virginia the case was somewhat different. Up to about her
twenty-fourth year she had pursued one subject with a zeal limited only
by her opportunities; study absolutely disinterested, seeing that she
had never supposed it would increase her value as a 'companion', or
enable her to take any better position. Her one intellectual desire was
to know as much as possible about ecclesiastical history. Not in a
spirit of fanaticism; she was devout, but in moderation, and never
spoke bitterly on religious topics. The growth of the Christian Church,
old sects and schisms, the Councils, affairs of Papal policy--these
things had a very genuine interest for her; circumstances favouring,
she might have become an erudite woman; But the conditions were so far
from favourable that all she succeeded in doing was to undermine her
health. Upon a sudden breakdown there followed mental lassitude, from
which she never recovered. It being subsequently her duty to read
novels aloud for the lady whom she 'companioned,' new novels at the
rate of a volume a day, she lost all power of giving her mind to
anything but the feebler fiction. Nowadays she procured such works from
a lending library, on a subscription of a shilling a month. Ashamed at
first to indulge this taste before Alice, she tried more solid
literature, but this either sent her to sleep or induced headache. The
feeble novels reappeared, and as Alice made no adverse comment, they
soon came and went with the old regularity.

This afternoon the sisters were disposed for conversation. The same
grave thought preoccupied both of them, and they soon made it their
subject.

'Surely,' Alice began by murmuring, half absently, 'I shall soon hear
of something.'

'I am dreadfully uneasy on my own account,' her sister replied.

'You think the person at Southend won't write again?'

'I'm afraid not. And she seemed so _very_ unsatisfactory. Positively
illiterate--oh, I couldn't bear that.' Virgi