"We have been Catholics for twenty generations," said Augustina, in her quavering voice. "But our ways--father's ways--weren't good enough for Alan. We thought he was making up his mind to be a Jesuit, and father was mad about it, because of the old place. Then father died, and Alan came home. He and my mother got on best; oh! he was very good to her. But he and I weren't brought up in the same way; you'd think he was already under a rule. I don't--know--I suppose it's too high for me----" She took up a handful of sand, and threw it, angrily, from her thin fingers, hurrying on, however, as if the unburdenment, once begun, must have its course. "And it's hard to be always pulled up and set right by some one you've nursed in his cradle. Oh! I don't mean he says anything; he and I never had words in our lives. But it's the way he has of doing things--the changes he makes. You feel how he disapproves of you; he doesn't like my friends--our old friends; the house is like a desert since he came. And the money he gives away! The priests just suck us dry--and he hasn't got it to give. Oh! I know it's all very wicked of me; but when I think of going back to him--just us two, you know, in that old house--and all the trouble about money----" Her voice failed her. "Well, don't go back," said Fountain, laying his hand on her arm. * * * * * And twenty-four hours later he was still pleased with himself and her. No doubt she was stupid, poor Augustina, and more ignorant than he had supposed a human being could be. Her only education seemed to have been supplied by two years at the "Couvent des Dames Anglaises" at St.-Omer, and all that she had retained from it was a small stock of French idioms, most of which she had forgotten how to use, though she did use them frequently, with a certain timid pretension. Of that habit Fountain, the fastidious, thought that he should break her. But for the rest, her religion, her poverty,--well, she had a hundred a year, so that he and Laura would be no worse off for taking her in, and the child's prospects, of course, should not suffer by a halfpenny. And as to the Catholicism, Fountain smiled to himself. No doubt there was some inherited feeling. But even if she did keep up her little mummeries, he could not see that they would do him or Laura any harm. And for the rest she suited him. She somehow crept into his loneliness and fitted it. He was getting too old to go farther, and he might well fare worse. In spite of her love of talk, she was not a bad listener; and longer experience showed her to be in truth the soft and gentle nature that she seemed. She had a curious kind of vanity which showed itself in her feeling towards her brother. But Fountain did not find it disagreeable; it even gave him pleasure to flatter it; as one feeds or caresses some straying half-starved creature, partly for pity, partly that the human will may feel its power.