instil into their minds any fact whatever, and such facts as had
established themselves there were permanent. They belonged to another
generation, and their mode of thought was a remnant of a forgotten and
unsatisfactory period. To them Napoleon the First was a living man,
Queen Victoria unheard of. The decay of their minds had been slow, and
it had been Christian Vellacott's painful task to watch its steady
progress. Day by day he had followed the gradual failing of each sense
and power.

There is something pathetic about the decay of a mind which has been
driven to death by constant work, but there is a compensating thought to
alleviate the sadness. It may rattle and grow loose, like some worn-out
engine, where the friction presses; but it will work till it collapses
totally, and some of the work achieved is good and permanent. It is
bound to be so. Infinitely sadder is the sight of a mind which is
falling to pieces by reason of the rust that has eaten into its very
core. For rust must needs mean idleness--and no human intellect
_need_ be idle. So it had been with these two old ladies. Born in a
wofully unintellectual age, they had never left a certain groove in
life. When their brother married Christian Vellacott's grandmother, they
had left his house in Honiton to go and live in Bodmin upon a limited
but sufficient income. These "sufficient incomes" are a curse; they do
not allow of charity and make no call for labour.

When Christian Vellacott arrived in England, an orphan with no great
wealth, he made it his first duty to visit the only living relations he
possessed. He was just in time to save them, literally, from starvation.
It was obvious that he could not make a literary livelihood in Bodmin,
so he made a home for the two old wrecks of humanity in London. Their
means, like their minds, were simply exhausted. Aunt Judith was