homely aunt, who was as good to them as if they were her own, was not all they wanted, though it might have been sufficient when they were little children. Miss Ferrars did not excuse him for this, but she forgave him, which was perhaps better. She regarded the prospect thus opening before her with a half amused sensation of dismay and horror. Oh, it would be no amusing matter! Her mind took a rapid survey of the situation, and a shiver ran over her. It would be she, probably, who would have to bear the brunt. He perhaps would not remark, as a woman would, though he was their father. “A kick that scarce would move a horse may kill a sound divine.” Their defects would probably not be apparent to him, and he would have the strong claim of paternal love to carry him through everything. On the whole, perhaps, it was better that there should be something to do of this strenuous description. It would keep the too-much well-being in hand. Two people very well off, able to give themselves everything they wanted, contented (more or less) with each other, were apt to fall into a state of existence which was not elevated, especially when they were middle-aged and the glamour of youth and happy love, and all the sentiment of that period did not exist for them. Evelyn looked upon married life with something of the criticism of a woman long unmarried. It was often a selfish life. Selfishness never comes to such a climax as when it is practised by two, in each other’s interests, and does not seem to be selfishness at all. When the horizon is limited by the wants and wishes of _us_, it is more subtly and exquisitely bound in, than when the centre is _me_. In such circumstances people are incapable of being ashamed of themselves, while a selfish solitary sometimes is. But the children! that restored the balance. There would be enough to keep a woman in her sober senses, to neutralise the deadening effects of prosperity, in that. As she laid herself down upon her bamboo couch to rest a little, she laughed to herself at the picture of too great quiet, too perfect external well-being that had been in her mind. There would be a few thorns in the pillow--it would not be all repose and tranquility. She might make her mind easy about that.