It was only Alice Mendon who listened with a frown of wonder, and intent eyes upon the reader.

When she came home upon one occasion, she remarked to her aunt, Eliza Mendon, and her cousin, Lucy Mendon, that she had been impressed by Annie Eustace's paper, but both women only stared and murmured assent.

The cousin was very much older than Alice, and both she and her mother were of a placid, reflective type.

They got on very well with Alice, but sometimes she had a queer weariness from always seeing herself and her own ideas in them instead of their own.

And she was not in the least dictatorial.
She would have preferred open, antagonistic originality, but she got a surfeit of clear, mirror-like peace.
She was quite sure that they would quote her opinion of Annie Eustace's paper, but that did not please her.