“Oh, my reasoning! is that all? I don’t stand upon my reasoning,” said Miss Susan. And then there was a pause in the conversation, for Miss Susan’s mind was perturbed, and she talked but in fits and starts, having sudden intervals of silence, from which she would as suddenly emerge into animated discussion, then be still again all in a moment. Miss Augustine, in her long limp gray dress, with pale hands coming out of the wide hanging sleeves, talked only on one subject, and did not eat at all, so that her company was not very cheerful. And Everard could not but glance up now and then to the gallery, which lay in deep shade, and feel as if he were in a dream, seated down below in the light. How vividly the childish past had come upon him; and how much more cheerful it had been in those old days, when the three atoms in the dusty corner of the gallery looked down with laughing eyes upon the solemn people at table, and whispered and rustled in their restlessness till they were found out! At last--and this was something so wonderful that even the servants who waited at table were appalled--Miss Augustine recommenced the conversation. “You have had some one here to-day,” she said. “Farrel-Austin--I met him.” “Yes!” said Miss Susan, breathless and alarmed. “It seemed to me that the shadow had fallen upon them already. He is gray and changed. I have not seen him for a long time; his wife is ill, and his children are delicate.” “Nonsense, Austine, the girls are as strong and well as a couple of young hoydens need be.” Miss Susan spoke almost sharply, and in a half-frightened tone. “You think so, Susan; for my part I saw the shadow plainly. It is that their time is drawing near to inherit. Perhaps as they are girls, nothing will happen to them; nothing ever happened to us; that is to say, they will not marry probably; they will be as we have been. I wish to know them, Susan. Probably one of them would take up my work, and endeavor to keep further trouble from the house.” “Farrel’s daughter? you are very good, Austine, very good; you put me to shame,” said Miss Susan, bending her head. “Yes; why not Farrel’s daughter? She is a woman like the rest of us and an Austin, like the rest of us. I wish the property could pass to women, then there might be an end of it once for all.” “In that case it would go to Reine, and there would not in the least be the end of it; quite the reverse.” “I could persuade Reine,” said Miss Augustine. “Ah, yes; I could persuade _her_. She knows my life. She knows about the family, how we have all suffered. Reine would be led by me; she would give it up, as I should have done had I the power. But men will not do such a thing. I am not blaming them, I am saying what is the fact. Reine would have given it up.”