Aunt Philippa, who was a rigid disciplinarian with her young daughter, always said that she had chosen the room 'because Jill would have nothing to distract her from her studies.' The poor child would put up her shoulders at this remark and draw down the corners of her lips in a way that would make Aunt Philippa scold her for her awkwardness.

'You need not make yourself plainer than you are, Jocelyn,' she would say severely; for Jill's awkward manners troubled her motherly vanity.

'What is the good of all the dancing and drilling and riding with Captain Cooper if you will persist in hunching your shoulders as though you were deformed?
Fraeulein has been complaining of you this morning; she seems excessively displeased at your carelessness and want of application.' 'I know I shall get stupid, shut up in that dull hole with Fraeulein,' Jill would say passionately, after one of these maternal lectures.

Aunt Philippa was really very fond of Jill; but she misunderstood the girl's nature.

The system had answered so well with Sara that she could not be brought to comprehend why it should fail with her other child.