334 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



race were left. For a number of years the pretty, pale 

 sisters, last of their name and race, contrived, by a 

 system of heart-breaking economy, to live on at Orgeit ; 

 and few who met them elegantly dressed in laces and 

 silk exhumed from family chests, and modernised in 

 the secrecy of their bed-chambers, would have guessed 

 that the high-bred Miss Ingath and the graceful Miss 

 Osla daily knew what the extreme of poverty meant. 



But though none would have guessed the truth, 

 everybody in the Isle knew it. 



Women whispered it to one another, and the whisper 

 reached men's ears. 



Few Shetland gentlemen can afford (or are too 

 worldly-wise to dare) to marry portionless brides ; there- 

 fore the ladies of Orgert passed their youth in single 

 blessedness, though they were not without admirers. 



As year followed year, and no one of all those 

 " admirers " became a suitor in earnest, the less comely 

 ladies of the Isle ceased to fear that Ingath and Osla 

 would prove successful rivals, and a certain pity for 

 the lonely sisters set in. 



"When the elder of the two reached twenty-five she 

 began to show decided signs of old maidenism. Her 

 features sharpened, and her speech became somewhat 

 acrid. The marked dignity of her bearing developed 

 into a stand-off style, which was by no means so 

 attractive or " telling " as the fine hauteur of earlier 

 days. 



Now, as a rule the women of those favoured Isles 

 do not begin to fade so soon as those in other countries, 



