OF WILDFELL HALL.
227
and his worthy wife, or the idea of being identified with such vulgar people in the eyes of the world,—and took lodgings in the county town, where she lived, and still lives, I suppose, in a kind of closefisted, cold, uncomfortable gentility, doing no good to others and but little to herself; spending her days in fancy-work and scandal; referring frequently to her "brother the vicar" and her "sister the vicar's lady," but never to her brother the farmer and her sister the farmer's wife; seeing as much company as she can without too much expense, but loving no one and beloved by none—a cold-hearted, supercilious, keenly, insidiously censorious old maid.
