by adding a stepmother to his
establishment; and, after some time, it became the custom to say of Mr.
Lind that the memory of his first wife kept him single. Thus, whilst his
sons were drifting to manhood through Harrow and Cambridge, and his
daughter passing from one relative's house to another's on a continual
round of visits, sharing such private tuition as the cousins with whom
she happened to be staying happened to be receiving just then, he lived
at his club and pursued the usual routine of a gentleman-bachelor in
London.

In the course of time, Reginald Lind, the eldest child, entered the
army, and went to India with his regiment. His brother George, less
stolid, weaker, and more studious, preferred the Church. Marian, the
youngest, from being constantly in the position of a guest, had early
acquired habits of self-control and consideration for others, and
escaped the effects, good and evil, of the subjection in which children
are held by the direct authority of their parents.

Of the numerous domestic circles of her father's kin, that with which
she was the least familiar, because it was the poorest, had sprung from
the marriage of one of her father's sisters with a Wiltshire gentleman
named Hardy McQuinch, who had a small patrimony, a habit of farming, and
a love of hunting. In the estimation of the peasantry, who would not
associate lands, horses, and a carriage, with want of money, he was a
rich man; but Mrs. McQuinch found it hard to live like a lady on their
income, and had worn many lines into her face by constantly and vainly
wishing that she could afford to give a ball every season, to get a new
carriage, and to appear at church with her daughters in new dresses
oftener than twice a year. Her two eldest girls were plump and pleasant,
good riders and hearty eaters; and she had reasonable hopes of marrying
them to prosperous country gentlemen.

Elinor, her third and only other child, was one of her troubles. At an
early age it was her practice, once a week or thereabouts, to disappear
in the forenoon; be searched anxiously for all day; and return with a
torn frock and dirty face at about six o'clock in the afternoon. She was
stubborn, rebellious, and passionate under reproof or chastisement:
governesses had left the house because of her; and from one school she
had run away, from another eloped with a choir boy who wrote verses. Him
she deserted in a fit of jealousy, quarter of an hour after her escape