Those dangers she named, observing that Mrs.
Lupin, their aunt, might know them, but was as liable to be sent to sleep by a fellow with a bag of jokes as a watchdog to be quieted by a bone.

The allusion here was to Mrs.Lupin's painful, partially inexcusable, incurable sense of humour, especially when a gleam of it led to the prohibited passages of life.

The poor lady was afflicted so keenly that, in instances where one of her sex and position in the social scale is bound to perish rather than let even the shadow of a laugh appear, or any sign of fleshly perception or sympathy peep out, she was seen to be mutely, shockingly, penitentially convulsed: a degrading sight.

And albeit repeatedly remonstrated with, she, upon such occasions, invariably turned imploring glances--a sort of frowning entreaty--to the ladies, or to any of her sex present.

"Did you not see that?
Oh! can you resist it ?" she seemed to gasp, as she made those fruitless efforts to drag them to her conscious level.