then the family duties of that aunt begin and are assumed sometimes
with great vigour. Such had been the case with Mrs Winterfield. No
woman ever lived, perhaps, with more conscientious ideas of her duty as
a woman than Mrs Winterfield of Prospect Place, Perivale. And this, as
I say it, is intended to convey no scoff against that excellent lady.
She was an excellent lady unselfish, given to self-restraint, generous,
pious, looking to find in her religion a safe path through life a path
as safe as the facts of Adam's fall would allow her feet to find. She
was a woman fearing much for others, but fearing also much for herself,
striving to maintain her house in godliness, hating sin, and struggling
with the weakness of her humanity so that she might not allow herself
to hate the sinners. But her hatred for the sin she found herself bound
at all times to pronounce to show it by some act at all seasons. To
fight the devil was her work was the appointed work of every living
soul, if only living souls could be made to acknowledge the necessity
of the task. Now an aunt of that kind, when she assumes her duties
towards a motherless niece, is apt to make life serious.

But, it will be said, Clara Amedroz could have rebelled; and Clara's
father was hardly made of such stuff that obedience to the aunt would
be enforced on her by parental authority. Doubtless Clara could have
rebelled against her aunt. Indeed, I do not know that she had hitherto
been very obedient. But there were family facts about these Winterfield
connexions which would have made it difficult for her to ignore her
so-called aunt, even had she wished to do so. Mrs Winterfield had
twelve hundred a year at her own disposal, and she was the only person
related to the Amedroz family from whom Mr Amedroz had a right to have
expectations on his daughter's behalf. Clara had, in a measure, been
claimed by the lady, and the father had made good the lady's claim, and
Clara had acknowledged that a portion of her life was due to the