man, and had abounding vitality, no second wife would ever obscure
to him that sacred memory. It was one of the many grounds she had
for admiring as much as she loved him. His loyalty stirred her
heart, coloured her view of life.

The ladies had some little apprehension that their young relative,
fresh from contact with a many-sided world, might feel a dulness in
their life and their interests; but nothing of the sort entered
Irene's mind. She was intelligent enough to appreciate the
superiority of these quiet sisters to all but the very best of the
acquaintances she had made in London or abroad, and modest enough to
see in their entire refinement a correction of the excessive
_sans-gene_ to which society tempted her. They were behind the times
only in the sense of escaping, by seclusion, those modern tendencies
which vulgarise. An excellent library of their own supplied them
with the essentials of culture, and one or two periodicals kept them
acquainted with all that was worth knowing in the activity of the
day. They belonged to the very small class of persons who still
read, who have mind and leisure to find companionship in books.
Their knowledge of languages passed the common; in earlier years
they had travelled, and their reminiscences fostered the liberality
which was the natural tone of their minds. To converse familiarly
with them was to discover their grasp of historical principles,
their insight into philosophic systems, their large apprehension of
world-problems. At the same time, they nurtured jealously their
intellectual preferences, differing on such points from each other
as they did from the common world. One of them would betray an
intimate knowledge of some French or Italian poet scarce known by
name to ordinary educated people; something in him had appealed to
her mind at a certain time, and her memory held him in gratitude.