Now, she had the reality. And what was it?

Externally it looked _very_ bright. Peeping into that warm, crimson-
tinted dining-room at the hour between dinner and tea, when the whole
family at the lodge were sure to be assembled there, any body would
say what a happy family it was, and what a pleasant picture it made.
Father and mother at either end of the table; children on both sides of it;
and the two elderly aunts seated comfortably in their two arm-chairs at
the fireside, one knitting--_q. e. d._--, sleeping, the other--

No. Miss Gascoigne never slept. Her sharp,

_"Flaw-seeking eyes, like needles' points,"_

were always open, and more especially when the circle consisted, as
now, of her brother-in-law, his children, and his new wife. Doubtless
she considered watchfulness her duty. Indeed, as she explained over
and over again to Aunt Maria, the principal reason which made her
consent still to remain at the Lodge, instead of returning to her own
pretty cottage at Avonside, was to overlook and guard the interests of
"those poor motherless children."

Now it happened, unfortunately for Miss Gascoigne, that if Christian
had one bright spot in the future of her married life to which she had
looked forward earnestly, longingly, it was those children--how she
would take care of them; fill up her weary days with them; love them,
and be loved by them; in short, find in them the full satisfaction of her
motherly heart--that heart in which she then thought there was no
instincts or emotions left except the motherly. How she yearned and
craved for this, God and her own soul only knew.