had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said—
“You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.”
Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment’s hesitation I answered—
“But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors