set on his shoulders. He has a small income of his own, which Jean
keeps religiously apart so that he may be able to go to a good school
when he is old enough.

"The great-aunt who brought up the Jardines must have been an uncommon
old woman. She died (perhaps luckily) just as the young Gervase Taunton
came on the scene.

"It seems she always dressed in rustling black silk, sat bolt upright on
the edge of chairs for the sake of her figure, took the greatest care of
her hands and complexion, and was a great age. She had, Jean said, 'come
out at the Disruption.' Jean was so impressive over it that I didn't
like to ask what it meant. Do you suppose she made her début then?

"Perhaps 'the Disruption' is a sort of religious _tamasha_. Anyway, she
was frightfully religious--a strict Calvinist--and taught Jean to regard
everything from the point of view of her own death-bed. I mean to say,
the child had to ask herself, 'How will this action look when I am on my
death-bed?' Every cross word, every small disobedience, she was told,
would be a 'thorn in her dying pillow.' I said, perhaps rather rudely,
that Great-aunt Alison must have been a horrible old ghoul, but Jean
defended her hotly. She seems to have had a great admiration for her
aged relative, though she owned that her death was something of a
relief. Unfortunately most of her income died with her.

"I think perhaps it was largely this training that has given Jean her
particular flavour. She is the most happy change from the ordinary
modern girl. Her manners are delightful--not noisy, but frank and gay
like a nice boy's. She neither falls into the Scylla of affectation nor
the Charybdis of off-handness. She has been nowhere and seen very