 herself. She could
have written if she had chosen but she enjoyed seeing others work, and
encouraging them, better than taking a more active part herself. Perhaps
literary people liked her all the better because she did not write.
    I, as she very well knew, had always been devoted to her, and she might have
had a score of other admirers if she had liked, but she had discouraged them
all, and railed at matrimony as women seldom do unless they have a comfortable
income of their own. She by no means, however, railed at man as she railed at
matrimony, and though living after a fashion in which even the most censorious
could find nothing to complain of, as far as she properly could she defended
those of her own sex whom the world condemned most severely.
    In religion she was I should think as nearly a free-thinker as anyone could
be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject. She went to church, but disliked
equally those who aired either religion or irreligion. I remember once hearing
her press a late well-known philosopher to write a novel instead of pursuing his
attacks upon religion. The philosopher did not much like this, and dilated upon
the importance of showing people the folly of much that they pretended to
believe. She smiled and said demurely, »Have they not Moses and the prophets?
Let them hear them.« But she would say a wicked thing quietly on her own account
sometimes, and called my attention once to a passage in her prayer-book which
gave an account of the walk to Emmaus with the two disciples, and how Christ had
called them »fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had told
them« - the all being printed in small capitals.
    Though scarcely on terms with her brother John she had kept up closer
relations with Theobald and his family, and had paid a few days' visit to
Battersby once in every two years or so. Alethæa had always tried to like
Theobald and join forces with him as much as she could - for they two were the
hares of the family, the rest being all hounds - but it was no use. I believe
her chief reason for maintaining relations with her brother was that she might
keep an eye on his children and give them a lift, if they proved nice.
    When Miss Pontifex had come down to Battersby in old times the children had
not been beaten, and their lessons had been made lighter. She easily saw that
they were overworked and unhappy, but she could hardly guess how all-reaching
was the régime under which they lived
