 look back with calmness and justice on all the stages she
had left behind. With her cousin Miriam she could sympathize in a way impossible
to Spence, who, by-the-bye, somewhat misrepresented his wife in the account he
gave to Mallard of their Sunday experiences. Puritanism was familiar to her by
more than speculation; in the compassion with which she regarded Miriam there
was no mixture of contempt, as in her husband's case. On the other hand, she did
not pretend to read completely her cousin's heart and mind; she knew that there
was no simple key to Miriam's character, and the quiet study of its phases from
day to day deeply interested her.
    Cecily Doran had been known to Spence from childhood; her father was his
intimate friend. But Eleanor had only made the girl's acquaintance in London,
just after her marriage, when Cecily was spending a season there with her aunt,
Mrs. Lessingham. Mallard's ward was then little more than fifteen; after several
years of weak health, she had entered upon a vigorous maidenhood, and gave such
promise of free, joyous, aspiring life as could not but strongly affect the
sympathies of a woman like Eleanor. Three years prior to that, at the time of
her father's death, Cecily was living with Mrs. Elgar, a widow, and her daughter
Miriam, the latter on the point of marrying (at eighteen) one Mr. Baske, a
pietistic mill-owner, aged fifty. It then seemed very doubtful whether Cecily
would live to mature years; she had been motherless from infancy, and the
difficulty with those who brought her up was to repress an activity of mind
which seemed to be one cause of her bodily feebleness. In those days there was a
strong affection between her and Miriam Elgar, and it showed no sign of
diminution in either when, on Mrs. Elgar's death, a year and a half after
Miriam's marriage, Cecily passed into the care of her father's sister, a lady of
moderate fortune, of parts and attainments, and with a great love of
cosmopolitan life. A few months more and Mrs. Baske was to be a widow,
childless, left in possession of some eight hundred a year, her house at
Bartles, and a local importance to which she was not indifferent. With the
exception of her brother, away in London, she had no near kin. It would now have
been a great solace to her if Cecily Doran could have been her companion; but
the young girl was in
