Aunt Charlotte had meanwhile grown to have much more respect for Austin than she had ever felt previously.  He was now nearly eighteen, and his character and mental force had developed very rapidly of late.  In spite of his inconceivable ignorance in some respects—­geography, for instance—­he had shown a shrewdness for which she had been totally unprepared, and a quiet persistence in matters where he felt that he was right and she was wrong that had begun to impress her very seriously.  Many instances had arisen in which there had been a struggle for the mastery between them, and in every case not only had Austin had his own way but she had been compelled to acknowledge to herself that the wisdom had been on his side and not on hers.  It was not so much that his reasoning powers were exceptionally acute as that he seemed to have a mysterious instinct, a sort of sub-conscious intuition, that never led him astray.  And then there were those baffling, inexplicable premonitions that on three occasions had intervened to prevent some great disaster.  The thought of these made her very pensive, and now that the vicar had set her mind at rest upon the abstract theory of invisible protectors she felt that she could harbour speculations about them without danger to her soul’s welfare.  That the power at work could scarcely emanate from the devil was now clear even to her, timid and narrow-minded as she was.  Still, with that illogical shrinking from any tangible proof that her creed was true that is so characteristic of the orthodox, the whole thing gave her rather an uncomfortable sensation, and she would vastly have preferred to believe in spiritual or angelic ministrations as a pious opinion or casual article of faith than to have it brought home to her in the guise of knocks and raps.  There are millions like her in the world to-day.  Her religion, like everything else about her, was conventional, though not a whit the less sincere for that.

And so it came about that she felt very much more dependent upon Austin than Austin did on her, although neither of them was conscious of the fact.  The chief result was that, now they had fallen into their proper positions, they got on together much better than they had done before.  Austin had really accomplished something towards “educating” his aunt, as he used humorously to say, and as he represented the newer and fresher thought it was well that it should be so.  I do not know that he troubled himself very much about the future.  In spite of his delicate health he was full of the joy of life, and he accepted it as a matter of course that wherever his future might be spent it would be a happy and a joyous one.  What was the use of worrying about a matter over which he had absolutely no control?  The universe was very beautiful, and he was a part of it.  And as the universe would certainly endure, so would he endure.  Why, then, should he concern himself about what might be in store for him?