indignation.  But it was to Sidwell that in the end she owed most.  Beneath the surface of ordinary and rather backward girlhood, which discouraged her father’s hopes, Sidwell was quietly developing a personality distinguished by the refinement of its ethical motives.  Her orthodoxy seemed as unimpeachable as Mrs Warricombe could desire, yet as she grew into womanhood, a curiosity, which in no way disturbed the tenor of her quietly contented life, led her to examine various forms of religion, ancient and modern, and even systems of philosophy which professed to establish a moral code, independent of supernatural faith.  She was not of studious disposition—­that is to say, she had never cared as a schoolgirl to do more mental work than was required of her, and even now it was seldom that she read for more than an hour or two in the day.  Her habit was to dip into books, and meditate long on the first points which arrested her thoughts.  Of continuous application she seemed incapable.  She could read French, but did not attempt to pursue the other languages of which her teachers had given her a smattering.  It pleased her best when she could learn from conversation.  In this way she obtained some insight into her father’s favourite sciences, occasionally making suggestions or inquiries which revealed a subtle if not an acute intelligence.

Little by little Mrs. Warricombe found herself changing places with the daughter whom she had regarded as wholly subject to her direction.  Sidwell began to exercise an indeterminate control, the proofs of which were at length manifest in details of her mother’s speech and demeanour.  An exquisite social tact, an unfailing insensibly as the qualities of pure air:  these were the points of sincerity of moral judgment, a gentle force which operated as character to which Mrs. Warricombe owed the humanisation observable when one compared her in 1885 with what she was, say, in 1874, when the sight of Professor.  Walsh moved her to acrimony, and when she conceived a pique against Professor Gale because the letter P has alphabetical precedence of W. Her limitations were of course the same as ever, and from her sons she had only learnt to be ashamed of announcing them too vehemently.  Sidwell it was who had led her to that degree of genuine humility, which is not satisfied with hiding a fault but strives to amend it.

Martin Warricombe himself was not unaffected by the growth about him of young men and maidens who looked upon the world with new eyes, whose world, indeed, was another than that in which he had spent the better part of his life.  In his case contact with the young generation tended to unsettlement, to a troublesome persistency of speculations which he would have preferred to dismiss altogether.  At the time of his marriage, and for some years after, he was content to make a broad distinction between those intellectual pursuits which afforded him rather a liberal amusement than the pleasures of earnest study and the questions of