conception of what they were not to expect. When
Kate came to think matters over with the aid of
knowledge, she failed quite to see how Aunt Maud
could have been different she had rather perceived
by this time how many other things might have
been; yet she also made out that if they had all con
sciously lived under a liability to the chill breath of
ultima Thule they couldn t, either, on the facts, very
well have done less. What in the event appeared
established was that if Mrs. Lowder had disliked
them she had yet not disliked them so much as they
supposed. It had at any rate been for the purpose
of showing how she struggled with her aversion
that she sometimes came to see them, that she at
regular periods invited them to her house, and in
short, as it now looked, kept them along on the
terms that would best give her sister the perennial
luxury of a grievance. This sister, poor Mrs. Croy,
the girl knew, had always judged her resentfully,
and had brought them up, Marian, the boys and
herself, to the idea of a particular attitude, for signs
of the practice of which they watched each other
with awe. The attitude was to make plain to Aunt
Maud, with the same regularity as her invitations,
that they sufficed thanks awfully to themselves.
But the ground of it, Kate lived to discern, was that
this was only because she didn't suffice to them. The
little she offered was to be accepted under protest,
yet not, really, because it was excessive. It wounded
them there was the rub! because it fell short.

[[30]]

p029 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p030w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p031

v?