The growth of the Christian Church, old sects and schisms, the Councils, affairs of Papal policy--these things had a very genuine interest for her; circumstances favouring, she might have become an erudite woman; But the conditions were so far from favourable that all she succeeded in doing was to undermine her health.

Upon a sudden breakdown there followed mental lassitude, from which she never recovered.

It being subsequently her duty to read novels aloud for the lady whom she 'companioned,' new novels at the rate of a volume a day, she lost all power of giving her mind to anything but the feebler fiction.

Nowadays she procured such works from a lending library, on a subscription of a shilling a month.

Ashamed at first to indulge this taste before Alice, she tried more solid literature, but this either sent her to sleep or induced headache.