8 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler, Esq. 



possible, should be fully conscious of that social superiority, 

 which they had been taught to believe was theirs. The two 

 young ladies of the house, after perhaps slightly irregular 

 school courses in a "Young Ladies' Seminary," where any 

 lack of scholastic success was due solely to the poor quality of 

 this or that particular teacher not to the lack of application 

 or capacity in the pupil had graduated in turn with honours 

 and a certificate in deportment, the elder winning a prize in 

 art and the younger in music. As the seminary was exclusive 

 and most select, measured by the high fees and the assured 

 gentle descent of the lady principal, Madame Keeler was fully 

 satisfied with the results, as a whole. Thereafter two years' 

 travel "abroad" in Europe with their mother, a few months' 

 rest in Lausanne for French and languages and as many more 

 in Munich for music and art had, with general travel, completed 

 the education of the two young ladies, who on their return 

 home in the early autumn, were duly announced in the society 

 columns amongst the season's notabilities, the elder especially 

 as a debutante, having already in London been presented at a 

 Drawing Room. Several seasons had passed since then and 

 the older, Miss Maud, was still unattached though holding 

 a high, even exclusive place in her circle, being best known 

 perhaps for a somewhat haughty reserve and a degree of con- 

 scious superiority no eligible parti having yet had the courage 

 to take a plunge into so crystalline a stream, whose temperature 

 was feared as being as chilling as its source. The younger 

 daughter, Fanny, bore a family name, and whether in speech 

 or manner expressed every shade of that vivacity and light- 

 heartedness, which had, and even yet, marked her mother. A 

 general favourite, it was her friends who especially brightened 

 the social circle of the young folks who frequented the house, 

 and who with their music and dancing had not been slow to 

 emulate the paces of their elders in the fashionable bridges, 

 which made life in the season a daily round of excitement, even 

 if rather enervating, to the vivacious Mrs. Keeler, who felt, 

 however, that "duty must be done!" 



It seems necessary in attempting this family inventory to 

 add a word or two about the sons of the family, John and Tom, 

 now young men, and the youngest, Ernest, a lad just leaving 



