At the back of her mind during all her adult life was the belief in the proximity of the end of the world, and in her inevitable translation to divine regions, where, with her husband, she would live an untroubled and unsexed life of uninterrupted habit. She took her husband with her, partly because he was a clergyman and had a prescriptive right to a heavenly mansion, but chiefly because, after so many years, she was unable to conceive of an existence without him. It was all very hazy, but it was towards this future that she turned when she said her prayers morning and evening. This she did as mechanically as she dressed and undressed, between which two operations she devoted herself to her public duties as rector's wife--Bible classes, mothers' meetings, and mission work--and to the cultivation of the nearest approach to a passion in her existence, gentility. She spent many solitary hours in the drawing-room because she could not sit with Francis in his study, as she disliked the smell of tobacco and detested his allegiance to a clay pipe. She was hardly ever known to stoop to enter the kitchen. Withal her authority was never questioned, and she obtained from her family, their friends and acquaintances, the homage and service she expected. She was a match-maker, and no combination of male and female was too grotesque for her. She was delighted with Gertrude's engagement. Bennett Lawrie's personality lent itself to sentimental heroics, and she was more than a little in love with him herself--as a little girl is in love with the first-comer. Minna's plurality in affairs of the heart baffled and annoyed her, for in love she always looked for constancy. She had marked down Streeten Folyat for Mary, though, beyond sending a brace of grouse every August, he showed little sign of desiring the more acquaintance of his cousins. . . . Annette and Serge she left unmated, of Serge she was afraid, and of Annette she took little account. But for Frederic she had planned many famous weddings and had laid countless traps for him. He never saw her scheming, but, going his own way, he ever evaded her until, having failed in her higher flights, she came to look nearer home. The Clibran-Bells had inherited money, and there was only one life between them and a large fortune, so that all the girls would possess some three hundred a year, while George would eventually be a man of large means, for the money came through Mrs. Clibran-Bell and avoided Mr. Clibran-Bell altogether. This sudden and unexpected outcrop of wealth occasioned great excitement in Fern Square, and the Clibran-Bells added another servant to their two. They also made a gift of two new altar-cloths and a chalice to the church. One of the altar-cloths was worked by Jessie Clibran-Bell with embroidery and appliqué. She was an accomplished needlewoman, had many little talents, and she was intelligent and pious. She was the eldest of the family and the most nearly beautiful.