d honoured, but
somehow did not proportionably endear herself on closer acquaintance,
doing a great deal of good, but all to large masses rather than
individuals. However, all the neighbourhood had a pride in her, and it
was a distinction to be considered a fit companion for Diana and Viola
Tracy. I never cared for Di, who was her mother over again, and used
to set us to rights with all her might; but she had married early, a
very rich man--and Viola and I had always been exceedingly fond of one
another, so that I could not bear to be cut off from her, however I
might be disposed to defy her mother.

The upshot of my perplexities was that I set off to Mycening to lay
them before Miss Woolmer, another of the few belonging to neither clan,
to know what all this meant, as well as to be interested in my nephews.

Mycening is one of the prettiest country towns I know, at least it was
twenty years ago. There is a very wide street, unpaved, but with a
broad smooth gravelled way, slightly sloping down towards the little
clean stone-edged gutters that border the carriage road along the
centre, which is planted on each side with limes cut into arches. The
houses are of all sorts, some old timbered gable-ended ones with
projecting upper stories, like our own, others of the handsome old
Queen Anne type with big sash windows, and others quite modern. Some
have their gardens in front, some stand flush with the road, and the
better sort are mixed with the shops and cottages.

Miss Woolmer lived in a tiny low one, close to the road, where, from
her upstairs floor, she saw all that came and went, and, intellectual
woman as she certainly was, she thoroughly enjoyed watching her
neighbours, as by judiciously-arranged looking-glasses, she could do
all up and down the street. I believe she had been a pretty woman,
though on a small scale, and now she had bright eyes, and a very sweet
bright look, though in complexion she had faded into the worn pallor
that belongs to permanent ill health. She dressed nicely, and if she
had been well, might, at her age, scarcely above forty, have been as
much a young lady as Philippa Horsman; but I fancy the great crush of
her life had taken away her girlhood and left her no spring of
constitution to resist illness, so that she had sunk into a regular
crippled invalid before I could remember, though her mind was full of
activity.

"You are come to tell me about them, my dear," was her greeting. "I'