But Lydia wore a grave face for several days, and annoyed and amused her younger sister with the attitude that something was wrong.

Lydia had changed more than any one of them, Martie thought, although her life was what it had always been.  She had been born in the old house, and had moved about it for these more than thirty years almost without an interruption.  But in the last six years she had left girlhood forever behind; she was a prim, quiet, contentedly complaining woman now, a little too critical perhaps, a little self-righteous, but kind and good.  Lydia’s will was always for the happiness of others:  Pa’s comfort, Pauline’s rights, and the wisest course for Martie and Sally to take occupied her mind and time far more than any personal interest of her own.  But she had a limited vision of duty and convention, and even Sally fretted under her sway.  Her father openly transferred his allegiance to Martie, and Lydia grieved over the palpable injustice without the slightest appreciation of its cause.

She was infinitely helpful in times of emergency, and would take charge of Sally’s babies, if Sally were ill, or slave in Sally’s nursery if all or any of the children were indisposed.  But she was not so obliging if mere pleasure took Sally away from her maternal duties.  Sally told Martie that there was no asking Lyd to help, either she did it voluntarily, or wild horses couldn’t make her do it at all.

If her younger sisters entrusted their children to Aunt Lydia, she was an adoring and indulgent aunt.  She loved to open her cookie jar for their raids, and to have them beg her favours or stories.  But if Lydia had expressed the opinion that it was too cold for the children to go barefoot, and Martie or Sally revoked the decision, then Lydia wore a dark, resentful look for hours, and was apt to vent her disapproval on the children themselves.

“No, get out of my lap, Jimmy.  I don’t want a boy that runs to his Mama and doesn’t trust his Auntie,” Lydia would say patiently, firmly, and kindly.  Martie and Sally, wives for years, were able to refrain from any comment.  To be silent when children are disciplined is one of the great lessons of marriage.

“But I don’t believe that a woman who ever had had a baby could rebuff a child like that,” Martie told Sally.  “I don’t know, though, some aunts are wonderful!  Only that pleasant justice does seem wasted on a child; it merely stings without being comprehensible in the least!”

So the younger girls dismissed it philosophically.  But it was one of the results of a life like Lydia’s that human intercourse had no lighter phases for her.  She must analyze and suspect and brood.  Wherever a possible slight was hidden Lydia found it.  She sometimes disappeared for a few hours upstairs, and came back with reddened eyes.

Her father’s devotion to Martie she bore with martyred sweetness.  When they laughed together at dinner she listened with downcast eyes, a faint, pained smile on her lips.