Sheila did not sufficiently understand the matter to be much interested; but she studied her uncle’s face, and decided that she should like him, although she thought she might stand a little in awe of him too. She fancied he could be pretty stern if he were angry, and that though a just man, he would be a rather exacting one, and would allow no loitering or shirking in any place where he was master. She was left rather long alone in the drawing-room after she had left her brother and uncle together; but when they came to her, she thought that Oscar looked pleased and animated, whilst her uncle’s face wore a quietly satisfied expression. He came and sat down beside her and looked her all over with an air of taking her measure, which half amused and half vexed her. “Yes, you will do very well up at the big house. It will suit you, and you will suit it. We are not fine enough for you in River Street; but you will find a good setting in Cossart Place.” “But I would rather go with Oscar, Uncle Tom, if I might,” said Sheila, with a coaxing note in her voice. “Ah, so you think now; but you might change your mind if you were to see the two houses. You’ve not been used to live in a street; and besides we haven’t too much room to spare. But they will make you quite comfortable at Cossart Place; and besides you are specially wanted up there to be a companion for poor Effie.” “Who is Effie?” asked Sheila, half ashamed that she did not even know the names of her cousins. Her mother had now and then spoken vaguely of these relatives; but Sheila had not felt any keen interest, and if ever she had heard of them individually, it was all forgotten long ago; and for the last five years she had almost ceased to remember the existence of her mother’s kindred. “She is the only child my poor brother has reared out of a fine young family of six,” answered the uncle gravely. “I can’t think what came to all the young ones. Whilst mine grew and throve, his would begin to pine away and dwindle when they got to be about twelve years old—sometimes before. Their mother has always been rather a delicate woman to be sure; but there doesn’t seem enough in that to account for it. Anyway that’s how they all went, and they buried them one after the other. All but Effie, the youngest, and she’s grown up a fairly healthy girl till the last year or two; and now she seems delicate, and you can guess how they feel about her.” Sheila was interested at once in the story of these little dead children, and of the cousin who had lived to grow up. “How old is Effie now?”