While Jane and Francis were discussing the state of Brandon’s affections, the object of their solicitude was going as fast as the railway could take him to Ashfield, where his widowed mother lived with his unmarried sister, a confirmed invalid, and a widowed sister, Mrs. Holmes, the mother of those wonderful nephews and nieces whose ignorance on the subject of dirt-pies had so much impressed Emily Phillips.  Brandon had always been very glad to go to see them, and to stay a short time, but the intolerable dullness of the place had always driven him back to London.  Australians generally prefer a large town as a residence, and London most of all; for though their relatives in small country towns or rural neighbourhoods fancy that it must be so much more lively with them than it is in the bush, there is a great difference between the dullness where there is plenty of work to be done, and the dullness where there is absolutely nothing.

Mrs. Brandon was a conscientious and, to a certain extent, rather a clever woman, but she had many prejudices and little knowledge of the world.  Mary Brandon was the most amiable and the most pious and patient of sufferers, who only got out in a Bath chair, and received a great deal of care from her mother, while Mrs. Holmes devoted herself to her children with a fidelity and an exclusiveness that made her influence elsewhere almost infinitesimal.  All of them loved Walter dearly, and were very anxious that he should be married—­most disinterestedly—­for their circumstances were straitened, and but for Walter’s assistance, which had been given whenever he could possibly afford to do so, they would have found it difficult to make ends meet.  Mr. Holmes had been unfortunate in business, and the widow had sacrificed part of her jointure, and the invalid sister as much of her little fortune as was at her own disposal, to assist him in his difficulties.  Their generosity had the usual result of only delaying the crash for him, and of finally impoverishing themselves.

One most promising brother had died at the close of a long, expensive professional education, which he had expected to turn to great account for the benefit of his sisters.  Walter himself had been sent out to Australia in his father’s lifetime with a better capital than could have been given afterwards, so that he always considered that he had got more than his share, and that his assistance was nothing at all generous.

The young Holmeses were taught and guarded by their mother night and day; she accompanied their walks, she overlooked their games, she read all their books before giving them to the children to read, and cut out or erased anything that she thought incorrect in fact or questionable in tendency.  She allowed no intercourse with servants, and almost as little with playfellows of their own age.  And when Uncle Walter from Australia came first to disturb the even tenor of their way by lavish presents of sweetmeats,