But she used it very little.
Cynthia's friends, were used to see her sitting absolutely silent behind the tea-urn at breakfast or tea, filling the cups while Cynthia handed them and Cynthia talked; and they had learned that it was no use at all to show compassion and try to bring her into the conversation.

A quiet rather stony stare, a muttered "Ah" or "Oh," were all that such efforts produced.

Some of the frequenters of the cottage drawing-room were convinced that Lady Georgina was "not quite all there." Others had the impression of something watchful and sinister; and were accustomed to pity "dear Cynthia" for having to live with so strange a being.
But in truth the sisters suited each other very fairly, and Lady Georgina found a good deal more tongue when she was alone with Cynthia than at other times.
To the lively account that Cynthia had been giving her of the evening at Beechmark, and the behaviour of Helena Pitstone, Lady Georgina had listened in a sardonic silence; and at the end of it she said-- "What ever made the man such a fool ?" "Who ?--Buntingford?
My dear, what could he do?
Rachel Pitstone was his greatest friend in the world, and when she asked him just the week before she died, how could he say No ?" Lady Georgina murmured that in that case Rachel Pitstone also had been a fool-- "Unless, of course, she wanted the girl to marry Buntingford.

Why, Philip's only forty-four now.

A nice age for a guardian! Of course it's not proper.