Last of all was her mother. She was always last in any assembly. Somehow she never seemed to count. In the old days even in her own home she could always be talked down, or put out of countenance or elbowed to the wall; and now, after the flight of years, in these grand surroundings, she had not altered in the least. She still had the eyes of a rabbit and a fat hand that wobbled; and on Melia's entrance into the room Gerty and Ethel at once took the lead of her in the way they had always taken it. "Why, I do declare!" Gerty rose at once with cleverly simulated surprise tempered by a certain stock brand of archness, kept always on tap, and unfailingly effective in moments of sudden crisis or emotional tension. "How are you, Amelia?" She would have liked to offer her cheek, but the look in Amelia's eyes forbade her risking it. Therefore, a hand had to suffice, an elegant hand, but a wary one which met with scant ceremony. Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, also rose, but not immediately. "Glad to see you, Amelia." Melia knew it was a lie on Ethel's part, and had she had a little more self-possession might have been moved to say so. The three daughters of Mr. Josiah Munt marked three stages in his meteoric career. Melia, the eldest, was the child of the primitive era. Compared with her sisters she was almost a savage. Between her and Ethel had been a boy, Josiah, whose birth had nearly killed Maria and who had died untimely in his babyhood. She was not allowed in consequence to bear any more children for ten years, and Ethel was the natural fruit of the interregnum. Ethel was generally allowed to be the masterpiece of the family. Five years after her had come Sally who perhaps in point of time and opportunity should have put out the light even of Ethel; but in her case it seemed the blessed word progress had moved a little too fast. Sally, as the world knew only too well, was over-educated; from the uplands of high intellectual development Sally had slipped over the precipice into a mental and moral abyss. From the social and even the physical standpoint Ethel was indubitably the pick of Mr. Josiah Munt's three daughters. And Mrs. Doctor's rather frigid reception of her eldest sister showed a nice perception of the fact. Amelia had thrown her back to a prehistoric phase. She had something of the air and manner of a charwoman. When she entered the room, little shivers had crept down Ethel's sensitive spine. She could hardly bear to look at her.