They overwork when they are young, and then when they grow up--" Meanwhile Mary led her private life.

She attached herself to no one but Jeremy; she was delicate and suffered from perpetual colds; she therefore spent much of her time in the nursery reading, her huge spectacles close to the page, her thin legs like black sticks stuck up on the fender in front of the fire or curled up under her on the window-seat.
Very different was Helen.

Helen had a mass of dark black hair, big black eyes with thick eye-lashes, a thin white neck, little feet, and already an eye to "effects" in dress.

She was charming to strangers, to the queer curates who haunted the family hall, to poor people and rich people, to old people and young people.

She was warm-hearted but not impulsive, intelligent but not clever, sympathetic but not sentimental, impatient but never uncontrolled.