The visitors were few who came to Kestercham vicarage in Gerald’s early days. Some cousins, boys and girls, the children of Mr. Eversley’s only surviving sister, who had married a well-to-do stationer--a union which excited something like a qualm in Mrs. Eversley, as the stationer’s deportment, especially his manner of drinking his tea, was not altogether above suspicion--two or three maiden ladies, friends of Mrs. Eversley before her marriage, and, like her, interested in ‘good works,’ so that, when they arrived, she was generally closeted with them for some hours every day, and the room in which their conference had been held was found to be strewn with a _débris_ of calico and tracts; and now and again a college friend of Mr. Eversley, who was always a clergyman, and nearly always preached two sermons for a Missionary Society. Gerald did not take much notice of these guests, except of the clergymen, who left on his mind the impression that clergymen were all grave and tall, and had long beards, and spoke in rather loud nasal tones, wore white neckcloths and stiff collars which must have caused them a great deal of chin-agony, and rejoiced in an almost exclusive, but quite indubitable, possession of a mysterious and all-important commodity called ‘the truth.’ When they were gone, he used to reflect with mingled feelings that some day he would be such a person himself. Mrs. Eversley’s relation to her stepson, though eminently proper and conventional, was, it may be supposed, not marked by any undue display of warmth. Not one stepmother in a hundred can enter into solemn feelings of the past without intruding upon them. Mrs. Eversley did her duty, or what she conceived to be her duty, by Gerald. She looked after his meals, his clothes, and his prayers; but, for the most part, she left him alone. It was impossible that sympathy should exist between them, for during her early married life she was much occupied with ‘good works,’ and afterwards with the care of her children--an office which by ladies of her disposition is generally distinguished from ‘good works.’ She was not what would be called a good mother; she was a good stepmother, and a good stepmother is, I am afraid, a bad thing. At all events, Mrs. Eversley’s influence upon Gerald’s life was essentially refrigerating and depressing. But she did her duty, and she said she did it.