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290 John's daughter should be no worse off than her aunts, and the provision made for the aunt and niece was ample enough to allow them to keep a handsome separate establishment. So long as Anthony was unmarried, however, they considered that it would be good for him that they should live with him, and not altogether inconvenient for themselves, and accordingly, when he determined on going to Stanmore, from which he had been so long absent, his sister and aunt were quite prepared to accompany him.

Anthony, as the elder brother and the young squire, considered that his sister ought to yield to him on every point in which they differed, while Edith, backed by the authority of her aunt Anne, more self-possessed and less sensitive, felt that she was older for a woman than he was for a man, and was never at all disposed to give in.

She knew how to make her brother feel a little incisive remark quietly made; a slight allusion to his want of success at the university, a hint as to the connection of the family with trade, or any mention of a Lady Clara, whom he had met at their aunt Lady Gower's, and who was believed to have refused him, would amply revenge any of his own blunter attacks upon herself.

The Derricks had not been kept in such ignorance as to their mother as Amy and her friends