ine's
strength of will could keep it in check sometimes, but in general it
had to be borne with. A sharp word would have silenced the mother's
well-meant chatter at any time--for she was a fragile nervous woman,
entirely dependent on her surroundings--but none of them were capable of
it, and their mere refractoriness counted for nothing.

The dining room in which they were gathered had a good deal of homely
dignity, and was to the Leyburns full of associations. The oak settle
near the fire, the oak sideboard running along one side of the room, the
black oak table with carved legs at which they sat, were genuine pieces
of old Westmoreland work, which had belonged to their grandfather. The
heavy carpet covering the stone floor of what twenty years before had
been the kitchen of the farm-house was a survival from a south-country
home, which had sheltered their lives for eight happy years. Over the
mantelpiece hung the portrait of the girls' father, a long serious
face, not unlike Wordsworth's face in outline, and bearing a strong
resemblance to Catherine; a line of silhouettes adorned the mantelpiece;
on the walls were prints of Winchester and Worcester Cathedrals,
photographs of Greece, and two old-fashioned engravings of Dante and
Milton; while a bookcase, filled apparently with the father's college
books and college prizes and the favorite authors--mostly poets,
philosophers, and theologians--of his later years, gave a final touch
of habitableness to the room. The little meal and its appointments--the
eggs, the home-made bread and preserves, the tempting butter and
old-fashioned silver gleaming among the flowers which Rose arranged with
fanciful skill in Japanese pots of her own providing--suggested the same
family qualities as the room. Frugality, a dainty personal self-respect,
a family consciousness, tenacious of its memories and tenderly careful
of all the little material objects, which were to it the symbols of
those memories--clearly all these elements entered into the Leyburn
tradition.

And of this tradition, with its implied assertions and denials, clearly
Catherine Leyburn, the eldest sister, was, of all the persons gathered
in this little room, the most pronounced embodiment. She sat at the head
of the table, the little basket of her own and her mother's keys beside
her. Her dress was a soft black brocade, with lace collar and cuff,
which had once belonged to an aunt of her mother's. It was too old
for her