THE DINERS.
Mrs. Ramshorn, Helen's aunt, was past the middle age of woman; had
been handsome and pleasing, had long ceased to be either; had but
sparingly recognised the fact, yet had recognised it, and felt
aggrieved. Hence in part it was that her mouth had gathered that
peevish and wronged expression which tends to produce a moral nausea
in the beholder. If she had but known how much uglier in the eyes of
her fellow-mortals her own discontent made her, than the severest
operation of the laws of mortal decay could have done, she might
have tried to think less of her wrongs and more of her privileges.
As it was, her own face wronged her own heart, which was still
womanly, and capable of much pity--seldom exercised. Her husband
had been dean of Halystone, a man of insufficient weight of
character to have the right influence in the formation of his
wife's. He had left her tolerably comfortable as to circumstances,
but childless. She loved Helen, whose even imperturbability had by
mere weight, as it might seem, gained such a power over her that she
was really mistress in the house without either of them knowing it.
Naturally desirous of keeping Helen's fortune in the family, and
having, as I say, no son of her own, she had yet not far to look to
find a cousin capable, as she might well imagine, of rendering
himself acceptable to the heiress.
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