Joan said nothing to anyone about Philip Selby’s proposal. She had, indeed, no one to consult on such a subject. She had grown up in the habit of indifference to her mother’s opinions, which originated partly in the difference of their dispositions and the superiority a calm temperament has over a nervous and anxious one, and partly in her father’s contempt of his wife, which her children resented, yet were influenced by. Seeing the number of times when Mrs. Joscelyn was unhappy, and excited as Joan thought about nothing, it was almost impossible for the strong-natured and composed young woman not to feel a certain affectionate and sometimes indignant contempt for the excess of feeling which gave so much trouble, yet never had any result; while, on the other hand, it is almost impossible for a man to treat his wife with systematic scorn without weakening the respect of her children for her, even when, as we have said, they resent his conduct and are more or less her partizans. At the best she was “poor mother,” a person to be defended and accounted for, not looked up to and trusted in. From her early youth Joan had been her own guide and governor. She had none of her mother’s sentiment; her mother’s standard was too high for her; her mother’s feelings overstrained and exaggerated. Among the multitude of “fusses” she was partly disgusted, partly amused, ready to take mother’s part, as has been seen, but always with a protest against the weaknesses which she could apologise for, but not understand. In the matter of Harry, as she shared in some measure the anxiety, she had in some measure understood the sentiment; but her attitude towards her mother was more that of a senior towards a junior, the stronger to the weaker, than the natural subordination which would have become their relationship. Joan knew that, had she consulted her mother about Mr. Selby, Mrs. Joscelyn would have been greatly excited. She would have questioned her daughter as to her love for her suitor, and his love for her, and all the sentimental questions, which Joan felt were well enough in books, but as far as regarded Philip Selby and herself were altogether out of the question. And as for mentioning such a subject to her father, nothing could have been more impossible. She was thus alone in her moderate and sober soul, as Mrs. Joscelyn was in her tender and somewhat excitable being. She could not tell her story to anyone with the hope of aid and guidance--who can? We are all alone when the great problems of life come upon us. Joan, however, thought of this question very soberly, without once regarding it in the light of a great problem. It excited her a good deal privately within her own composed bosom; but, to tell the truth, its first effect was more mirthful than serious. In the seclusion of her own being she laughed, saying to herself that after all the maids had been right, that she had “got a lad” when she was least thinking of it. The laugh was not without a touch of gratification in it, for it is true that a young woman, even when she reaches the mature age of thirty and gives herself out as beyond such vanities, still likes to have “a lad,” and to feel that she is like the others--“respectit like the lave,” not left out in this important particular of life. Joan was pleased with Mr. Selby that he had appreciated her. She thought the more of him for it, as has perhaps been already perceived. She had an honest consciousness of her own value. She knew what she could do, and what her services were worth in the not very satisfactory position she held in her father’s house, where she had the responsibility of everything without either the approbation or the reward to which such work as hers was entitled. And she knew, without any misplaced modesty on the subject, that she would make an excellent wife. But being thirty, and in her own opinion very homely in appearance, and evidently not appreciated in this way, Joan had, with a half-conscious contempt for the fool of a man, whoever he was, who had not “come forward,” and a secret laugh when she thought of it, even at this contempt--put that contingency out of her mind and taken it for granted that she was to be Joan Joscelyn till the end of her days, the manager and soul of the establishment at the White House. If it occurred to her sometimes--as of course it must have done--that the White House could not continue for ever under its present _régime_, and that the day would come when Will’s wife (and a bonnie hand _she_ would make of it!) must reign in her stead, the idea in no way troubled her; for she knew that no circumstances could arise in which she, Joan Joscelyn, would not be well worth her salt.