Free A Family and a Fortune by Ivy Compton-Burnett

affection and kindness and yet with her own little sharpness, just our old Blanche! And her dear Justine’ - Matty put her hand to her lips and fell into mirth - ‘so sure of her right to improve us all and so satisfied with it! So pleased with her effort to influence her aunt, who has faced so much more than she could conceive! Dear child, may she never even have to attempt it. Well, we are not all alike and perhaps it is as well. Perhaps it is good that we are all on our different steps in the human scale. And there are good things on each level. In some ways we might take a leaf out of her book.’
    â€˜We might, but I do not think of it, and I do not ask it of you.’
    â€˜It is naughty to say it, but does she remind you of that church worker at home? Someone so good and useful that everyone loved her and no one admired her? Now how unkind and malicious! I am quite ashamed.’
    â€˜Have I met a person of that kind?’
    â€˜You must remember poor Miss Dunn at home.’
    â€˜Why should I single her out of all that I remember? And how could I guess her employment?’
    â€˜The coat and the collar and the shoes,’ said Matty, again in mirth.
    â€˜They both wear such things, I grant you. I do the same and shall do it still for a short time.’
    â€˜Poor Miss Griffin, you were the target. You might havebeen a little dark slave or a wee beastie in a trap, from the way she spoke. We do not move every day, do we? It has only been once in thirty years.’
    Miss Griffin felt that there was some reproach in the rareness of the step, though she would willingly have taken it oftener.
    â€˜She meant to be very kind, I am sure.’
    â€˜She meant to be a little stern with me, just a tiny bit severe. But I did not mind. She is my dear, good niece and wants to improve the world and the people in it, Aunt Matty into the bargain.’
    â€˜They might be the better for it,’ said Oliver, ‘but it is not her business.’
    â€˜She feels it is, and so we must let her do it. We must take it up as a funny little cross and carry it with us.’
    â€˜Why do that? Why not close her mouth upon things which are not her concern? That is a thing you can do. I have observed it.’
    â€˜Edgar is a handsome man,’ said Matty in another tone. ‘He was very tall and distinguished in this little room. Oh, wasn’t it funny, the way they kept talking about it? Calling it snug and cosy. We might be cottagers.’
    â€˜That is what we are, though your sister did not allow it.’
    â€˜And Justine said that she was glad we were safe in it. We had no other refuge, had we?’
    â€˜I cannot tell you of one. So we have our cause for thankfulness. But it is not for her to point it out. She seems to me to have greater cause.’
    â€˜Mr Gaveston and Mr Dudley are not so much alike when you get to know them,’ said Miss Griffin.
    â€˜They are of the same type, but Mr Gaveston is the better example,’ said Matty, who maintained the full formal distance between herself and her companion, in spite of her habit of frankness before her.
    â€˜I like Mr Dudley’s face better.’
    â€˜Do you? It is not the better face. It has not the line or the symmetry. It is a thought out of drawing. But they are a fine pair of brothers.’
    â€˜There is something in Mr Dudley’s face that makes it quite different from Mr Gaveston’s, I hardly know how to say what I mean.’
    â€˜That might be said of any two people. They are not just alike, of course.’
    â€˜Mr Dudley’s face has a different kind of attraction.’
    â€˜There is only one kind, of the one we were talking of,’ said Matty in a tone which closed the subject.
    â€˜Miss Griffin has found another,’ said Oliver, ‘or has fancied it. But why talk of the fellows’ looks? They are not women. And both of you are, so it is wise to leave the