However, Emily could forgive a great deal when she found that Lily
was ready to take any part of the business of the household and
schoolroom, which she chose to impose upon her, without the least
objection, yet to leave her to assume as much of the credit of
managing as she chose--to have no will or way of her own, and to help
her to keep her wardrobe in order.
The schoolroom was just now more of a labour than had ever been the
case, at least to one who, like Lilias, if she did a thing at all,
would not be satisfied with half doing it. Phyllis was not altered,
except that she cried less, and had in a great measure cured herself
of dawdling habits and tricks, by her honest efforts to obey well-
remembered orders of Eleanor's; but still her slowness and dulness
were trying to her teachers, and Lily had often to reproach herself
for being angry with her 'when she was doing her best.'
But Adeline was Lily's principal trouble; there was a change in her,
for which her sister could not account. Last year, when Eleanor left
them, Ada was a sweet-tempered, affectionate child, docile, gentle,
and, excepting a little occasional affectation and carelessness, very
free from faults; but now her attention could hardly be commanded for
five minutes together; she had lost the habit of ready and implicit
obedience, was petulant when reproved, and was far more eager to
attract notice from strangers--more conceited, and, therefore, more
affected, and, worse than all, Lily sometimes thought she perceived a
little slyness, though she was never able to prove any one instance
completely to herself, much less to bring one before her father.
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