Summers and winters came and went, with little to mark them, except the growth of the trees, and the quiet progress of young creatures.

Erminia was sent to school somewhere in France, to receive more regular instruction than she could have in the house with her invalid aunt.

But she came home once a year, more lovely and elegant and dainty than ever; and Maggie thought, with truth, that ripening years were softening down her volatility, and that her aunt's dewlike sayings had quietly sunk deep, and fertilized the soil.

That aunt was fading away.

Maggie's devotion added materially to her happiness; and both she and Maggie never forgot that this devotion was to be in all things subservient to the duty which she owed to her mother.
"My love," Mrs.Buxton had more than once said, "you must always recollect that your first duty is toward your mother.