But they were not so successful with the lady governing the household, their widowed maternal aunt, Mrs.Lackstraw, a woman of decisive penetration, and an insubordinate recruit of the army aforesaid.

To her they were without a mask; John was passion's slave, Jane the most romantic of Eve's daughters.

She pointed to incidents of their youth; her vision was acutely retrospective.

The wealth of her nephew and niece caused such a view of them to be, as she remarked, anxious past endurance.

She had grounds for fearing that John, who might step to an alliance with any one of the proudest houses in the Kingdom, would marry a beggar-maid.