CHAPTER IX.
On garde longtemps son premier amant quand on n'en prend point de second .-- LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The two aunts meanwhile were sitting waiting in the drawing-room.
When Mrs.Bellairs died, which event, according to Aunt Aggie, had been brought about by a persistent refusal to wear on her chest a small square of flannel, (quite a small square) sprinkled with camphorated oil, and according to Aunt Mary by a total misconception of the Bellairs' character; when this event happened, the two aunts became what they called supports to their brother's motherless children.
They were far from being broken reeds which pierce the hands of those who lean on them.
No one had ever leaned on Aunt Mary or Aunt Aggie.

Aunt Mary might perhaps be likened to one of those stout beams which have a tendency to push ruthlessly through the tottering outer wall which they are supposed to prop, into the inner chamber of the tenement which has the misfortune to be the object of their good offices.
She had contracted, not in her first youth, a matrimonial alliance--it could hardly be called a marriage--with a general, distinguished in India and obscure everywhere else, who had built a villa called "The Towers" a few miles from Priesthope.

The marriage had taken place after years of half-gratified reluctance on his part and indomitable crude persistence on hers.

In short it was what is generally called "a long attachment," and proves beyond dispute, what is already proven to the hilt, that the sterner sex prefer to have their affairs of the heart arranged for them; that once lost sight of they are mislaid, once let loose on parole they never return, once captured they endeavour to escape; that even when finally married nothing short of the amputation of all external interests will detain them within the sacred precincts of THE HOME.
Aunt Mary had had trouble with her general, but though she was no tactician, she was herself a general.

His engagement to her had only been the first of the crushing defeats which she had inflicted upon him.
Now at last at The Towers a deathlike peace reigned.