Few governesses had so pleasant a life.  Mrs. Rossall, supported by her brother’s views, imposed on her children a minimum of brain-work.  Bodily health was after all the first thing, especially in the case of girls.  A couple of hours’ school in the morning, one hour given to preparation of lessons after tea—­this for the present was deemed quite enough.  ’Your companionship throughout the day will always be forming their minds,’ Mrs. Rossall said in one of her earliest conversations with Emily; it was pleasantly put, and truer than it would have been in the ease of many instructresses.  The twins were not remarkably fond of their lessons, but in Emily’s hands they became docile and anxious to please.  She had the art of winning their affection without losing control over them; had Mrs. Bossall’s rather languid habits of mind allowed her to give attention to the subject, she would have been struck with the singular combination of tenderness and reverence which the two entertained towards their teacher.  Little laxities of behaviour arid phrase upon which their mother’s presence would be no check, they did not venture to allow themselves when with Emily; her only reproof was a steady gaze, eloquent of gentleness, but it proved quite sufficient.  The twins were in truth submitting to the force of character.  They felt it without understanding what it meant; one ether person in the house experienced the same influence, but in his case it led to reflection.

Wilfrid was at Balliol when Miss Hood first arrived; he saw her for the first time when he came to town after his collapse.  All hastened away to The Firs together.  Wilfrid suffered no positive illness; he shared in the amusements of the family, and, with the exception of a good deal of pishing and pshawing at the restraints put upon him, had the appearance of one taking an ordinary holiday.  There was undeniable truth in Beatrice Redwing’s allusion to his much talking; without social intercourse he would soon have become ill in earnest; association with intelligent—­all the better if argumentative—­people was an indispensable condition of his existence.  In his later school, and early college, days this tendency to give free utterance to his thoughts made him not altogether the most delightful of companions to such as were older than himself; his undeniable cleverness and the stores of knowledge he had already acquired needed somewhat more of the restraint of tact than his character at that time supplied.  People occasionally called him a prig; now and then he received what the vernacular of youth terms ‘a sitting upon.’  The saving feature of his condition was that he allowed himself to be sat upon gracefully; a snub well administered to him was sure of its full artistic, and did not fail in its moral, effect:  there was no vulgar insolence in the young fellow.  What he received he could acknowledge that he deserved.  A term or two at Balliol put this right; in mingling with some that were his equals, and one or two who were his superiors, he learned prudence in the regulation of his speech.