As a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from her brother and
his wife, the children would never have been able to guess it from the
invariably restrained tones of her fluent and agreeable speech, so
different from the outspoken virulence with which people in that house
were accustomed to defend their ideas. But, indefinable though it was
to Sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt that the advent
of her father's beautiful and gracious sister was like a drop of
transparent but bitter medicine in a glass of clear water. There
was no outward sign of change, but everything was tinctured by
it. Especially was her father changed from his usual brilliantly
effervescent self. In answer to the most harmless remark of Aunt
Victoria, he might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voice
which made Sylvia look up at him half-afraid. If Aunt Victoria noticed
this sardonic accent, she never paid it the tribute of a break in the
smooth surface of her own consistent good-will, rebuking her brother's
prickly hostility only by the most indulgent tolerance of his
queer ways, a tolerance which never had on Professor Marshall's
sensibilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its natural
result.

The visit which Aunt Victoria paid them when Sylvia was ten years old
was more peaceable than the one before it. Perhaps the interval of
five years between the two had mellowed the relationship; or more
probably the friction was diminished because Aunt Victoria arranged
matters so that she was less constantly in the house than usual. On
that occasion, in addition to the maid who always accompanied her,
she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and with characteristic
thoughtfulness refused to impose this considerable train of attendants
on a household so primitively organized as that of the Marshalls. They
all spent the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town, a