power is nearly useless, and that, between near connections, love
commanded, not won, generally results in something very like hatred.

Besides, was there not some truth in what the aunt said? Had she--the
second wife--authority over the first Mrs. Grey's children? Would it
not be better to let them alone, for good or for evil, and trouble herself
about their welfare no more? But just that minute Oliver's little feet
went pattering outside the door--Oliver, who, still a nursery pet, was
freer than the others, and who had already learned where to come of
forenoons for biscuits to eat or toys to be mended. There was now a
one-wheeled cart and a three-legged horse requiring Christian's
tenderest attention; and as she sat down on the crimson sofa, and busied
herself over them, with the little eager face creeping close to hers, and
the little fat arm steadying itself round her neck, her wet eyes soon
grew dry and bright, and her heart less sore, less hopeless. The small,
necessities of the present, which make children's company so soothing,
quieted her now; and by the time she had watched the little fellow run
away, dragging his cart and horse down the oak floor, shouting "Gee-
ho!" and turning round often to laugh at her, Christian felt that life
looked less blank and dreary than it had done an hour ago.

Still, when she had dressed herself in the violet silk and Honiton lace
which Miss Gascoigne had informed her were necessary--oh, how she
had been tormented about the etiquette of this "at home"--the cloud
darkened over her again. What should she do or say to these strange
people?--the worse, that they were not quite strangers--that she knew
them by report or by sight--and, alack! from her father's ill name they
knew her only too well. How they would talk her over and criticise
her, in that small way in which women do criticise one another, and
which she now, for the first time in her life, had experienced. Was it