Laura, in derision, called Ellen Mrs. Harpagon, after Molière's miser; and well did Miss Gilmar deserve the name. She was a little, black, active woman, with a neat figure and a somewhat pinched white face. Her eyes were hard-looking, her lips were thin, and she was a perfect skinflint in the management of the household. Even Kirkstone, inclined as he was to economy, grumbled at times about her excessive economy; but as the months went by, he fell gradually into her saving way of living, and the Hall soon gained a name in the county for all that was mean and niggardly. The larder was always kept locked, the servants were ill fed, and the occasional beggars who came to that forbidden door were not fed at all. Scraping, and screwing, and hoarding of money became the order of the day; and Kirkstone soon found that he was redeeming his former waste, at the cost of a hard and somewhat hungry life. However, the habit of living thus penuriously became confirmed, and both he and Mrs. Harpagon vied with one another in discovering new methods of saving money. The only person in the Hall who did not relish this extreme economy was Laura Kirkstone. The attitude adopted by Kirkstone towards his wealthy sister was a fairly amiable one. Having a strong will, he compelled her weaker one to bow to it; and kept a sharp watch on her, lest she should marry some one of whom he did not approve, and so take the money--which he looked upon as rightfully his own--out of the family. Many a young man would have been glad to marry Miss Kirkstone, both for her money and good looks; for in a pink-and-white sort of way the girl was pretty; but Kirkstone invited none of these would-be suitors to the house, and turned a cold shoulder to them in public. Laura was forbidden even to speak to them; and being kept closely to her own home, lived in the gaunt, grim Hall, like an enchanted princess guarded by two ogres. And none of the young knights who wished to marry her had sufficient courage to brave the black looks of Kirkstone, or the acidulated sneers of his amiable housekeeper and cousin. Such was the position of affairs at Kirkstone Hall when Marmaduke Dean again entered into the life of his former friend.