Miss Maltby was considerably older than her brother, and had been almost in the position of a parent to him when he had, in his early life, lost his own mother. She was one of those invaluable single women, not uncommon in the middle rank of society in England, whose sterling excellences are more widely felt than openly appreciated. She was not one of those active ladies who carry little bells on the skirts of their good deeds, so as to make a loud tinkling in the ears of the world. Hers was a quiet and unobtrusive work. Her views of usefulness and duty were, in the eyes of some of her acquaintance, old-fashioned and behind the age. Standing on one side, as it were, out of the whirl of _good_ excitement, she could mark the mistakes and shortcomings in the bringing up of the professedly Christian families which came under her observation, and of the grownup workers of her own sex. But the wisdom she gathered from observation was stored up in a mind ever under the control of a pure and loving heart. Sneer or sarcasm never passed her lips. When called on to reprove the wrong or suggest the right, she always did it with "meekness of wisdom," her object being, not to glorify self by making others painfully conscious of their inconsistencies or defects, but to guide the erring gently into the paths of righteousness, sober-mindedness, and persuasive godliness. Practical good sense, the fruit of a plain scriptural creed thought out, prayed out, and lived out, in the midst of a thousand unrealities, and half-realities, and distortions of the truth in belief and practice, was the habitual utterance of her lips and guide of her daily life. She and Thomas Bradly were special friends, inasmuch as they were thoroughly kindred spirits, anything like sham or humbug being the abhorrence of both, while the Word of God was to each the one only infallible court of appeal in every question of faith and practice. "You must see a good deal of the coarser-grained human material here in Crossbourne," remarked Dr Prosser to the vicar, as they strolled together in the garden in the evening after their meeting. "When I last had the pleasure of visiting you, before you came to this living, your parishioners were of a more civilised stamp." "More `civil' would perhaps be a more correct term," said Mr Maltby, "at least so far as touchings of the hat and smooth speeches were concerned. But, in truth, with all the roughness of these people, there is that sterling courtesy and consideration in many of them which I rarely meet with in more cultivated districts." "Well," said the other, "I suppose that is owing to the increased intelligence produced by habits of reading, attending lectures, and studying mechanism."