Hard she undoubtedly was, and but little given to sentimental feelings, which was a great grief to her companion, Miss Minnie Pelch, who was tender-hearted in the extreme, and had oceans of tears on every possible occasion, from a wedding to a funeral. Miss Pelch was a weak, soulful creature, the daughter of a clergyman who had been curate at Denfield, a village near Errington Hall. The Rev. Pelch was a widower, and his sole offspring was the fair Minnie, but having only a small income, he saved nothing: so when he died she was left destitute, with a doubtful future before her. She had not enough brains for a governess, no talents except a pretty taste in poetry, which was not a marketable commodity, and no beauty to attract marriageable young men, so Minnie wept over the mistake of having been born, and Heaven only knows what would have become of her had not Miss Corbin, like a kind-hearted vulture, swooped down on the poor creature and taken her up to London as her companion. So Minnie was provided for by brusque Aunt Jelly, although no one ever knew what a trial she was to that sensible old lady, for Miss Pelch was one of those exasperatingly limp creatures who always pose as martyrs, and shed tears at the least thing. Aunt Jelly was not unkind by nature, but sometimes the tearful Minnie was too much for her endurance, and if she could have got rid of her she certainly would have had small hesitation in doing so. But there was no chance of this coming to pass, as Minnie was one of those meek creatures who rest where they are thrown, so Miss Corbin, regarding her as a necessary cross, did the best she could to put up with her tears, her milk-and-water conversation and her longings after fame. Fame! yes! this invertebrate creature, whose intellect was of the smallest, had actually written a book of poems after the style of L.E.L., in which she compared herself to "a withered leaf on the tree of life." She had several times inflicted these weak rhymes, in which mountain rhymed to fountain, and dove to love, on Miss Jelly, but that stout old dame snorted disdainfully at her companion's poetical fancies, whereupon Minnie retired with her manuscript, sat in the twilight, and wished herself dead. When Eustace visited his aunt, Minnie always attacked him about the publication of her poems, and Eustace, the cynical, the bitter, the scornful, actually read her poor little rhymes and promised to see what he could do with them, which proved that a good deal of his cynicism was only skin deep. Perhaps he was forced into this promise by Aunt Jelly, who thought if Minnie could only get her drivel published she would perhaps hold her tongue for the rest of her life, but this hope seemed too good to be realised.