"Hush, Minnie, you must not judge hastily or harshly."
"I don't, dear aunt," and she loosed one gentle hand, and put her arm round the other's neck; "but I have noticed so many unamiable traits in his character--but aunt Sylvia thinks him perfection."
"I suppose I must not now speak of my protegé--our young clergyman?"
Minnie looked embarrassed. "Dearest aunty," she said at last, "I don't want to marry; I'm very happy: why so earnestly seek for one to take me away from you all? Mr. Skaife is sincere, I believe, in saying, he likes me; I like him as an acquaintance, but I shouldn't like to marry him. He's very good, kind, and charitable, I daresay; but I think he wants that sacred fire which, in his sacred calling, makes the chilly approach, to cheer themselves by the glowing warmth."
"Oh, my dear child! your heart has not spoken, this is the truth; when it speaks, may it be for a worthy object--that's all I pray. _I_ like Mr. Skaife: for my sake, dear, try and do so likewise."
Before a reply could be given, the bedroom door opened with fracas, and aunt Sylvia suddenly appeared. She was totally different in appearance to her sister. Dorcas was plump, good-tempered, meek-looking, about forty-five years of age. Sylvia was some five years her senior; a little, thin, sharp-faced woman--one whose very dress looked meagre; not the richest brocade could appear rich on so shapeless an anatomy; it would trail on the ground, limp, and disheartened from any attempt to look well. She had the strangest eyes in the world--a dark, dingy, chestnut brown, of which the pupil was certainly not larger than a pin's head; thin nose, thin lips, thin hair, hands, and voice, completed aunt Sylvia--with the addition of the very thinnest mind in the world. It was like a screw-press; put any thing bulky within it, it was compressed _instanter_ to a mummy, and thence doled out in such small particles, that it was inevitably lost in the general mass of which aunt Sylvia was formed.
"I declare, Minnie," she whistled forth in her shrilly tone, "you would provoke a saint; here have I been calling you at the top of my voice this hour, and you must have heard me! Really, Dorcas, it is too bad; you always encourage the child--you, too, must have heard me."