Aunt Anne.

By Mrs. W. K. Clifford,

Author of “Mrs. Keith’s Crime,” etc.

“As less the olden glow abides,

And less the chillier heart aspires,

With driftwood beached in past spring-tides

We light our sullen fires.”

James Russell Lowell.

In Two Volumes.

Vol. I.

London:

Richard Bentley & Son,

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.

1892.

(All rights reserved.)

AUNT ANNE.

CHAPTER I.

r. and Mrs. Walter Hibbert had been married just four months when Aunt Anne first appeared on the scene. They were at Brighton, whither they had gone from Friday to Tuesday, so that Mr. Hibbert might get braced up after a hard spell of work. Besides doing his usual journalism, he had been helping a friend with a popular educational weekly, and altogether “had slaved quite wickedly,” so his wife said. But he had declared that, though he found matrimony, as far as he had gone, very delightful, it had to be paid for, especially at the beginning of its career, when it ran into furniture, linen, plate, and expensive presents to a dear little wife, though the expensiveness of the last he generously kept to himself. So it resulted in the visit to Brighton. They spent the happiest four days in the world there, and felt quite sad when Tuesday morning arrived. But they wisely did their best to forget that the evening train would take them back to London, and resolved that their last day should pass merrily.

“Suppose we have a long drowsy morning on the pier,” she suggested; “nothing is nicer or more restful than to listen to the band and look down into the water. We needn’t see the horrid people—indeed, if we sit on one of the end seats and keep our faces turned seawards, we can forget that they even exist.”

Mr. Hibbert solemnly considered the proposal.

“The only drawback is the music, it makes so much noise—that’s the worst of music, it always does,” he said sadly. “Another thing is, that I cannot lie full length on the pier as I can on the beach.”

“Very well, then we’ll go to the beach. The worst of the beach is, that we can’t look down into the water, as we can from the end of the pier.”

“That’s true; and then there are lots of pretty girls on the pier, and I like to see them, for then I know that there are some left—for the other fellows,” he added nobly.

So they went to the pier, and sat on one of the side seats at the far end and looked down into the water, and blinked their happy eyes at the sunshine. And they felt as if all the beautiful world belonged to them, as if they two together were being drawn dreamily on and on into the sky, and sea, and light, to make one glorious whole with happy nature; but a whole in which they would be for ever conscious of being together, and never less sleepy or blissful than now. This was Walter’s idea, and he said it all in his dear romantic way that generally ended up with a laugh. “It would never do, you know, because we should get nothing to eat.”

“Don’t,” she said. “That is so like you; you always spoil a beautiful idea, you provoking thing,” and she rubbed her chin against the back of the seat and looked down more intently at the water. Without any one in the least suspecting it, he managed to stoop and kiss her hand, while he pretended to be trying to see something, that of course was not there, at the top of a wave.

They were having a delightful morning, they lived in every moment of it, and wished it would never come to an end; still, when it did, there would be a delicious luncheon to go back to—very large prawns, roast chicken and green peas, and an enormous dish of ripe figs, which both their souls loved. After all, Walter thought, the world was not a bad place, especially when you had a wife who adored you and thought that everything you did bore the stamp of genius.

The band was playing a waltz, though to this day they do not know it. All manner of people were passing to and fro, but they did not notice them.

“I should like to stay here for ever,” Mrs. Hibbert said, with a sweet sigh of content. “Do you know, Walter,” she went on suddenly after a pause, “it will be four months to-morrow since we were married? Time seems to have flown.”

“By Jove! it really is a miracle what those four months have done with themselves,” he answered, looking up for a moment; as if to be sure that Time was not a conjurer standing before him about to hand the four months from beneath a handkerchief, with a polite bow and the remark that they would have to be lived through at the ordinary rate.

A spare-looking old lady, dressed in black, passed by, but he did not notice her.

“You see,” he went on, with his eyes fixed on a sailing boat in the distance, “if things were always going to be——”

At the sound of his voice the lady in black, who was only a few yards off, stopped, listened, hesitated, and, turning back, stood before him. He recognized her in a moment.

“Aunt Anne!” he exclaimed. His voice was amiable, but embarrassed, as if he did not quite know what to do next.

“My dear Walter,” she said, with a sigh and in a tone of great relief, “I am so glad to find you; I went to your lodgings, I saw your name and address in the visitors’ list yesterday, but you were out; then I thought I might find you here. And this is your wife? My dear Florence, I am so glad to see you.”

Till that moment Mrs. Walter Hibbert had never heard of the existence of Aunt Anne, but Aunt Anne had evidently heard of Mrs. Hibbert. She knew her Christian name, and called her by it as naturally as if she had been at her christening. She stretched out a small hand covered with a black thread glove as she spoke, and held Florence’s fingers affectionately in hers. Florence looked at her a little wonderingly. Aunt Anne was slight and old, nearly sixty perhaps. All over her face there were little lines that crossed and re-crossed, and branched off in every direction. She had grey hair, and small dark eyes that blinked quickly and nervously; there appeared to be some trifling affection of the left eye, for now and then, as if by accident, it winked at you. The odd thing was that, in spite of her evident tendency to nervous excitement, her shabby black satin dress, almost threadbare shawl, and cheap gloves, there was an air of dignity about the spare old lady, and something like determination in her kindly voice that, joined to her impulsive tenderness, made you quickly understand she would be a very difficult person to oppose.

“Dear boy,” she said gently to Walter, “why didn’t you write to me when you were married? You know how glad I should have been to hear of your happiness.”

“Why didn’t you write to me, Aunt Anne?” he asked, gaily turning the tables.

“Yes, I ought to have done so. You must forgive me, dears, for being so remiss,” she said, looking at them both, “and believe me that it was from no lack of affection. But,” she went on quickly, “we must not waste our time. You are coming to Rottingdean with me, and at once. Mr. Baines is longing to see you both.”

“But we can’t go now, Aunt Anne,” Walter declared in his kindest manner; “we must get back to the lodgings. We told them to have luncheon ready at one o’clock, and to-night we go home. You must come and lunch with us.”

“That is impossible, dear Walter; you are coming back with me.”

“It can’t be done to-day,” he said regretfully.

“My dear Walter,” she answered, with a look of dismay and in a voice that was almost pained, “what would your uncle say if he heard you? I could not possibly return without you.”

“But he has never seen me, Aunt Anne.”

“That is one reason why he would never forgive me if I did not take you back.”

“But it is so far, and we should be all day getting there,” Walter objected a little helplessly, for he felt already that Aunt Anne would carry her point.

“It is only to Rottingdean”—she spoke with hurt surprise—“and we will drive. I saw a beautiful fly as I was coming on to the pier, and engaged it. I know you too well, my darling, to think that you will refuse me.”

Her manner had changed in a moment; she said the last words with soft triumph, and looked at Florence. The sight of the young wife seemed to be too much for her; there was something like a tear in the left eye, the one that winked, when she spoke again.

“I must give her a kiss,” she said tenderly, and putting out her arms she gathered the girl to her heart. “But we must make haste,” she went on quickly, hurrying over the fag end of her embrace, as if she had not time to indulge in her feelings much as she desired to do so. “Mr. Baines will wonder what has happened to us. He is longing to see you;” and without their knowing it, she almost chased them along the pier.

Then Walter, thinking of the prawns and the chicken and the large dish of ripe green figs, made a wild struggle to get free.

“But really, Aunt Anne,” he said firmly, “we must go back to the lodgings. Come and lunch with us now, and let us go and see Mr. Baines another time; I dare say we shall be at Brighton again soon. We will make a point of coming now that we know you are here, won’t we, Floggie?” and he appealed feebly to his wife.

“Yes, indeed we will,” Florence assured her.

“Dear children,” Aunt Anne laughed, “I shall not take any excuse, or think of letting you escape now that I have found you.” There was an unexpected brightness in her manner, but there was no intention of letting them go.

“Besides, there may be important letters at the lodgings, and I ought to do a bit of work;” but there was evident invention in Walter’s voice, and she did not slacken her pace. Still, as if she wanted him to know that she saw through his excuses, she looked at him reproachfully, and with a determination that did not falter.

“It would be impossible for me to return without you,” she said, with extreme gravity; “he would never forgive me. Besides, dear children, you don’t know what a pleasure it is to see you. I could not let you go just yet. My heart gave a bound as I recognized Walter’s voice,” she went on, turning to Florence; “he is so like what his dear father used to be. I knew him directly.”

They were already by the turnstile. They felt helpless. The old lady with the thin shoulders and the black shawl loosely floating behind seemed to be their master: they were like children doing as they were told.

“Here is the fly. Get in, my darlings,” she said triumphantly, and Florence meekly took her place. “Get in, dear Walter,” she repeated with decision, “I will follow; get in,” and he too obeyed. Another moment and they were going towards Rottingdean.

The old lady looked relieved and pleased when they were well on their way.

“It is a lovely drive,” she said, “and it will do you far more good than sitting on the pier. I am so glad to have you with me, dear children.” She seemed to delight in calling them children, and it was odd, but each time that she said the word it seemed to give her a stronger hold on them. She turned to Florence.

“Are your father and mother quite well, my dear?” she asked, and waited with polite eagerness for a reply.

Walter put his hand on his wife’s.

“She only has a mother,” he said gently.

Aunt Anne looked quite penitent. She winked with her left eye and was silent for a moment or two, almost as if she meditated shedding a tear for the defunct father of the niece by marriage whom she had never seen in her life before to-day. Suddenly she turned the subject so grotesquely that they nearly laughed.

“Are you fond of chocolates, my darling?”

“Yes——” Florence hesitated a minute and then said softly, “Yes, Aunt Anne, very”—she had not had occasion to give the old lady any name in the few words she had spoken previously.

“Dear child, I knew you would be,” Aunt Anne said, and from under her shawl she produced a box covered with white satin paper and having on its lid a very bright picture of a very smart lady. “I bought that box of chocolates for you as I came along. I thought Florence would be like the picture on the lid,” she added, turning to her nephew; “and she is, don’t you think so, Walter dear?”

“Yes, Aunt Anne, she is—it is a most beautiful lady,” he answered, and he looked fondly at his wife and drew up his lips a little bit in a manner that Florence knew meant, in the language only she and he in all the wide world understood, that in his thoughts he kissed her.

Aunt Anne was a dear old lady, Florence thought, and of course she liked, and always would like, any relation of Walter’s; still, she did so wish that on this particular day, their last by the sea together, Aunt Anne had kept her distance. Walter was so pale when they left town, but since Friday, with nothing to do but to get brown in the sun, he had been looking better and handsomer every day, and this last one they had longed to enjoy in their own lazy way; and now all their little plans were spoilt. To-morrow he would be at his office: it was really too bad, though it was ungrateful to think it, perhaps, with the remembrance of Aunt Anne’s embrace fresh upon her, and the box of chocolates on her lap. Still, after all, she felt justified, for she knew that Walter was raging inwardly, and that if they were alone he would use some short but very effective words to describe his own feeling in respect to the turning up of Aunt Anne. Only he was so good, so gentle and considerate, that, no matter what his thoughts might be, of course he would not let Aunt Anne feel how much her kindness bothered him.

Meanwhile, they jogged along in the open fly towards Rottingdean. A long, even road, with a view on the right of the open sea, on the left alternate high hedges and wide meadows. The grass on the cliffs was green; among the grass were little footpaths made by wandering feet that had diverged from the main road. Florence followed the little tracks with her eyes; she thought of footpaths like them far away, not by the sea, but among the hanging woods of Surrey. She and Walter had sauntered along them less than a year ago. She thought of home, of the dear mother busy with her household duties, but making time between to write to the boys in India; of the dear, noisy boys who suddenly grew to be young men and vanished into the whirl of life; of the dirty old pony carriage in which she had loved to drive her sweetheart; and when she got to this point her thoughts came to a full stop to think more particularly of the pony. His name was Moses, and he had liked being kissed and eating sugar. She remembered, with a pang of self-reproach, that in the last months before her marriage she used to forget to kiss Moses, though she often stood absently stroking his patient nose. She had sometimes even forgotten his morning lump of sugar in the excitement of reading the letter that the early post never failed to bring.

“Are you fond of scenery, dear?” Aunt Anne asked.

With a start Florence looked round at the old lady, at Walter, at the shabby lining of the fly.

“Yes, very,” she answered.

“I knew it by the expression of your face when you looked at the sea. Mr. Baines says it is a lovely view.”

Why should Mr. Baines be quoted? Florence wondered. She looked again—an open sea, a misty horizon, a blue sky, and the sun shining. A fine sea-view, certainly, and a splendid day, but scenery was hardly the term to apply to the distance beside them.

“Is Mr. Baines very fond of the sea?” she asked. She saw that Aunt Anne was waiting for her to speak, and she said the first words that presented themselves.

“Yes, my love, he delights in scenery. You must call him Uncle Robert, Florence. He would be deeply wounded to hear you say Mr. Baines. Neither he nor I could think of Walter’s wife as anything but our niece. You will remember, won’t you, my love?” Aunt Anne spoke in the gentle but authoritative voice which was, as they had already found, difficult to resist.

“Yes, Aunt Anne, of course I will if you wish it; it was only because as yet I do not know him.”

“But you soon will know him, my love,” the old lady answered confidently; “and when you do, you will feel that neither he nor I could think of Walter’s wife except to love her. Dear child, how fond he will be of you!” And she put her hand affectionately on Florence’s while she turned to Walter and asked suddenly—

“Walter dear, have you got a white silk handkerchief for your neck?”

He looked at her for a moment, almost puzzled, wondering whether she wanted to borrow one.

“No, Aunt Anne, I fear I have not.”

She dived down into her pocket and pulled out a little soft packet. “I thought it possible you hadn’t one,” she said joyfully, “so I bought this for you just now;” and she tucked the little parcel into his hand.

It took him by surprise, he did not know what to say. He felt like the schoolboy she seemed to take him for, and a schoolboy’s awkwardness overtook him; he smiled, nodded mysteriously, and put the handkerchief into his pocket. His manner delighted Mrs. Baines.

“He is just the same,” she said to Florence; “I remember him so well when he was only ten years old. He had the most lovely eyes I ever saw. Walter, do you remember my visit to your father?—Ah! we have reached the hill, that’s why he’s going so slowly,” she exclaimed excitedly. “We shall be there in five minutes. Now we are close to the village. Drive through the street, coachman,” she called out, “past the church, and a little way on you will see a house standing back from the road with a long garden in front and a white gate. Florence dear,” she asked, still keeping her eyes fixed on the driver, “do you like preserve?”

“Like—do you mean jam?” Florence asked, bewildered by another sudden question.

“Yes, my love, preserve,” Aunt Anne answered pointedly, as if she resented the use of the shorter word.

“Yes, I like it very much,” her newly found niece said humbly, feeling that she had been rebuked.

“We have quantities of fruit in our garden, and have been preserving it all the week. It is not very firm yet, but you must have some to take back with you.”

“I am afraid we shall hardly be able to carry it,” Florence began timidly, feeling convinced that if she were made to carry jam to London it would be fatal to the rest of her luggage.

“I will pack it for you myself,” Aunt Anne said firmly. She was watching the driver too intently to say more. She did not speak again till they had driven down the one street of Rottingdean, past the newly built cottages and the church, and appeared to be getting into another main road. Then suddenly she rose triumphantly from her seat. “There it is, coachman, that little cottage to the left. Dear Walter—how pleased your uncle will be! Here it is, dears,” and all her kindly face lighted up with satisfaction as they stopped before a small whitewashed cottage with a long garden in front and a bed of lupins at the side. Florence noticed that the garden, stretching far behind, was full of fruit-trees, and that a pear-tree rubbed against the sides of the house.

The old lady got out of the fly slowly, she handed out her niece and nephew; the latter was going to pay the driver, but she pushed away his hand, then stood for a moment feeling absently in her pocket. After a moment she looked up and said in an abstracted voice, “Walter dear, you must settle with the flyman when you go back to Brighton; he is paid by the hour and will wait for you, my darlings;” and she turned towards the gate. “Come,” she said, “I must present you to your uncle.—Robert,” she called, “are you there?” She walked along the pathway with a quick determined step a little in advance of her visitors: when she reached the house she stood still, looking in, but hesitating to enter. Florence and Walter overtaking her saw that the front door opened into a room simply, almost poorly, furnished, with many photographs dotted about the walls, and a curious arrangement of quartz and ferns in one corner. While Mrs. Baines stood irresolute, there came round the house from the right a little shabby-looking maid-servant. Her dress was dirty, and she wore a large cap on her untidy head.

“Emma,” said Aunt Anne in the condescending voice of one who struggled, but unsuccessfully, to forget her own superior condition in life, “where is your master?”

“I don’t know, mum, but I think he’s tying up the beans.”

“Have you prepared luncheon?”

The girl looked up in surprise she evidently did not dare express, and answered in the negative.

“Then go and do so immediately.”

“But please, mum, what am I to put on the table?” asked the girl, bewildered.

“Put!” exclaimed the old lady; “why, the cold bacon, and the preserved cranberries, of course, and the honey and the buns.”

Florence thought that it sounded like the oddest meal in the world.

“I think we had better return, I do indeed, Aunt Anne, if you will kindly let us,” urged Walter, thinking regretfully of the chicken.

Aunt Anne waved her hand.

“Walter,” she answered grandly, “you shall not go until you have partaken of our hospitality. I wish it were a thousand times better than it is,” she added, with a pathetic note in her voice that found their hearts directly.

Walter put his hand on her shoulder like the simple affectionate fellow he was, and Florence hastened to say heartily—

“It sounds delightful, dear Aunt Anne; it is only that we——” And then there came slouching round the left side of the house a tall ungainly-looking man of about sixty, a man with a brown beard and brown trousers, carrying in his hand a newspaper. He looked at Walter and at Florence in almost stupid surprise, and turned from them with a grunt.

“Anne,” he said crossly, “where have you been? I have wasted all my morning looking for you; you knew those scarlet runners wanted tying up, and the sunflowers trimming. Who are these?” he asked, nodding at his visitors as coolly as if they had been out of hearing; “and what is that fly doing at the gate?”

“Why, I have been to Brighton, of course,” Aunt Anne answered bravely, lifting her head and looking him in the face, but there was a quaver of something like fear in her voice; “I told you I was going: I went by the omnibus.”

“What did you go to Brighton for? you were there only last week.” He lowered his voice and asked again, “Who are these?”

“Robert, I told you yesterday that Walter Hibbert’s name was in the visitors’ list in the paper, and that I was longing to see him and his wife,” she answered sharply, but still with dignity—it was doubtful which of the two was master—“so of course I went off this morning to fetch them. I knew how glad you would be to see them.”

Mr. Baines gave a grunt.

The maid, laying the cloth in the whitewashed sitting-room, stopped clattering the forks and spoons to hear what was going on and to look through the open window. Aunt Anne noticed it in a moment, and turning round said sternly—

“Emma, proceed with your work. I told you,” she went on, again speaking to her husband, “that these dear children were at Brighton. I have brought them back, Robert, to introduce them to you. They have been looking forward to it.”

He gave another grunt, and shook his awkward shoulders in what was meant to be a civil manner.

“Oh, that’s it,” he said; “well, you had better come in and have something to eat.” And he led the way into the cottage.

Aunt Anne entirely recovered herself the moment she was under her own roof. “He is so forgetful,” she said softly, “but he has really been longing to see you;” and she touched his arm: “I told them how glad you would be to see them, Robert,” she said appealingly, as if she felt quite certain that he would remember his gladness in a moment or two, and wondered if it was yet flowing into his heart. “Dear Florence, you must ask him to show you his botanical specimens; he has a wonderful collection.”

“We will,” said Walter, good-humouredly.

“And now you must excuse me for a few minutes, dears. I know how much your uncle will enjoy a talk with you;” and, to the dismay of the Hibberts, Aunt Anne vanished, leaving them alone with the brown man.

Mr. Baines sat slowly down on the arm-chair, the only really comfortable one in the room, and stretched out his left leg in a manner that showed it was stiff. Then he looked at his visitors grimly, yet with a suggestion of odd amusement on his face, as if he knew perfectly how embarrassed they felt.

“Sit down, Mrs. Hibbert,” he said, nodding towards an ordinary chair, and including Walter in the nod. “I dare say you’ll be glad of your food before you look at specimens. I shall,” and he gave a lumbering laugh. “I have done a hard morning’s work.”

“I am sure you must be very tired,” Florence said politely, wishing Aunt Anne would return.

He seemed to know her thoughts, and answered them in an explanatory manner: “Anne won’t be long. She always dresses before we have dinner. Great nonsense, living as we do; but it’s no use my speaking. Do you make a long stay in Brighton, Mr. Hibbert?”

“No, we go back to town to-night.”

“A good thing,” he said, with another lumbering laugh; “Brighton is a horrible place to my mind, and the sooner one leaves it the better. That pier, with its band and set of idle people, with nothing else to do but to walk up and down;—well, it’s my opinion that railways have done a vast deal of mischief and mighty little good to make up for it. The same thing can be said of newspapers. What good do they do?”

Walter felt that this sudden turn upon the Press was a little hard on him, but he looked up over his moustache with laughter in his eyes, and wondered what would come next. Florence was almost angry. Aunt Anne’s husband was very rude, she thought, and she determined to come to the rescue.

“But you were reading a paper,” she said, and tried to see the name of one that Mr. Baines had thrown down beside his chair.

“Oh, yes; I like to try and find out what mischief they are going to do next. If I had my way they should only be published monthly, if at all. All they do is to try and set people by the ears.”

“But they tell us the news.”

“Well, and what better are we for that? I don’t want to know that a man was hanged last week, and a prince will be married to-morrow; I only waste my time reading about them when I might be usefully employed minding my own business.”

“Walter writes for a paper,” Florence said distantly, determined to find out if Mr. Baines was being rude on purpose. A little dull curiosity came into his eyes, as he looked up and asked—

“Walter—who’s Walter?”

“I am,” laughed the owner of the name; “but she needn’t have betrayed me.” Mr. Baines was in no way disconcerted.

“Oh! you write for a paper, do you? Well, I am sorry for you; you might do something much better. Oh, here’s Anne; now we had better go and eat.” With the aid of a stick, he shuffled out of the chair, refusing Walter’s offered help. “I didn’t know you wrote for a paper, or I would have held my tongue,” he said, as a sort of apology. “No, thank you, I am all right once I am on my feet.”

Florence and Walter were astonished when they looked at Aunt Anne. They hardly knew her again. The shabby black shawl had vanished, the dusty bonnet was replaced by a soft white cap; there was lace at her throat fastened by a little crinkly gold brooch that had a place for hair in the middle: her satin dress trailed an inch or two on the ground behind, and she had put a red carnation in her bosom almost coquettishly.

“Now, dears,” she said, with a smile of welcome that was fascinating from its absolute genuineness, “I shall be truly hurt if you fail to do justice to our simple repast”—and she sat down with an air of old-fashioned stateliness as if she were heading a banquet table. “Sit down, dears. Robert, you must have Florence on your right hand.”

The Hibberts took their places merrily, their spirits reviving now that they were no longer alone with their host. Aunt Anne, too, looked so picturesque sitting there in the little summer-like room, with the garden beyond, that they could not help being glad they had come. They felt that they were living a distinct day in their lives, and not one that afterwards in looking back they would find difficult to sort out from a hundred others like it.

Even Mr. Baines grew less grumpy, and offered presently to show them the garden.

“And the plum-trees and the pear-trees,” said Aunt Anne; “and the view from the summer-house in the corner.”

“Oh yes,” her husband said, “we’ll show them all;” and he helped to do the honours of the table with what he evidently intended to be genial courtesy.

“It does my heart good to see you, dears,” Aunt Anne said, as she insisted on helping them to an enormous quantity of stewed cranberries.

“And it does us good to be here,” they answered, forgetting all their vexation at losing a day by the sea; forgetting even the poor chicken that was being roasted in vain, and the waiting fly to be paid for at so much an hour.

“Walter dear,” Mrs. Hibbert said, as they drove back to Brighton, carefully balancing on their knees four large pots of jam, while they also kept an eye on an enormous nosegay badly tied up, that wobbled about on the back seat, “Mr. Baines didn’t seem to know you when we arrived.”

“He had never set eyes on me before. Aunt Anne only set eyes on him five years ago. He was rather a grumpy beggar. I wonder who the deuce he was? We none of us ever knew.”

“He didn’t know you were a journalist, I think.”

“No, I suppose not. I wonder if he ever did anything for a living himself?” Then, as if he repented saying anything that sounded unkind of a man whose salt he had just eaten, he added, “But you can never tell what people are from their talk the first time you see them. He is not unlike a man I knew some years ago, who was a great inventive genius. He used to shuffle about in shoes too big for him, just as this beggar did.”

“I felt quite frightened when he first came round the corner.”

“You see it was rough upon him having his morning spoilt. A man who lives in the country like that generally gets wrapped up in his surroundings. I suppose I must have known that Aunt Anne was at Rottingdean,” he went on; “but if so, I had forgotten it. She quarrelled with my father and every one else because she was always quite unable to keep any money. There was a great deliberation in the family a few years ago, when it was announced that Aunt Anne was destitute and no one wanted to keep her.”

“But had she no money of her own?”

“She had a little, but she lived on the capital till it was gone, and there was an end of that. Then suddenly she married Mr. Baines. I don’t know who he was, but she met him at a railway station. He had a bad headache, I believe, and she thought he was ill, and went up and offered him some smelling-salts.”

“Why, it was quite romantic,” Florence exclaimed.

Walter had a curious way of looking up when he was amused, and he looked up in that curious way now.

“Yes,” he said, “quite romantic.”

“Do go on.”

“I don’t know any more except that somehow they got married, and she turned up to-day as you saw; and I wish she hadn’t given us any jam, confound it. I say, darling, let’s throw it over that hedge.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t for the world,” Florence said. “It would be so unkind. She was a dear old lady, Walter, and I am glad we went to see her. She asked for our address in London, and said she should write to us.”

But Aunt Anne did not write for a long time, and then it was only to condole with Walter on the death of his father. The first year after their visit to Rottingdean she sent a large Christmas card inscribed to “My dear Walter and Florence, from Aunt Anne;” but the second year even this was omitted. It was not until Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert had been married nearly seven years that Aunt Anne again appeared before them.

CHAPTER II.

any things had happened to Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert in those seven years. Most important of all—to themselves, at least—was the birth of their two children, lovely children Mrs. Hibbert declared them to be, and in his heart her husband agreed with her. But the time came when Walter found to his dismay that even lovely children would sometimes cry, and that as they grew older they wanted room to run about with that constant patter-pattering sound that is usually more delightful to a mother’s ear than to a fathers, especially when he has to produce intelligible copy. So the Hibberts moved away from the little flat in which they had begun their married life, to an ugly little upright house sufficiently near Portland Road to enable Walter to get quickly to the office. There a nursery could be made at the top of the house, where the children would be not only out of sight, but out of hearing.

Walter did a great deal of work, and was fairly well paid, but that did not mean a large income for a young couple with two children and three servants, trying to keep up an appearance before the world. He wrote for magazines and literary journals, occasionally he did a long pot-boiler for one of those reviews he called refuges for destitute intellects; and altogether was thrown much among men better off than himself, so that he did not like to look poor. Besides, he preferred to live with a certain amount of comfort, even though it meant a certain amount of anxiety, to looking poverty-stricken or shabby for the sake of knowing precisely how he would stand at the end of the quarter, or being able at any moment to lay his hand on a ten-pound note.

“You not only feel awkward yourself if you look poor, but cause other people to feel so,” he said; “and that is making yourself a nuisance: you have no business to do that if you can avoid it.”

So, though the Hibberts had only a small house, it was pretty and well arranged. Their simple meals were daintily served, and everything about them had an air that implies content dashed with luxury. In fact, they lived as people can live now, even on a small income, and especially in London, in comfort and refinement.

Still, it was a difficult task to pull through, and Walter felt that he ought to be making more money. He knew, too, though he did not tell his wife so, that the constant work and anxiety were telling on him; he wanted another but a far longer bracing-up than the one he had had seven years ago at Brighton. “A sea voyage would be the thing,” he thought, “only I don’t see how it could be managed, even if I could get away.”

The last year had been a fortunate one in some respects: an aunt of Mrs. Hibbert’s had died, leaving them a hundred pounds and a furnished cottage near Witley, in Surrey. It was a dear little cottage, they both protested—red brick, of course, as all well-bred cottages are nowadays, standing in an acre and a half of its own fir-wood, and having round it a garden with tan paths and those prim flowers that grow best in the vicinity of fir. It would be delightful to stay there in the summer holidays, they agreed, or to run down from Saturday to Monday, or, by-and-by, to send the children there for a spell with the governess when their parents were not able to get away from town. Walter had tried sending Florence and the children and going down every week himself, but he found “it didn’t work.” She was always longing to be with him, and he with her. It was only a broad sea and a few thousand miles that would make separation possible, and he did not think he could endure that very long: he was absurdly fond of his dear little wife.

All this he thought over as he walked along the Strand one morning to his office. He was going to see his chief, who had sent for him on a matter of business. His chief was Mr. Fisher, an excellent editor, though not quite enough of a partisan perhaps to have a strong following. The Centre was a model of fairness, and the mainstay of that great section of the reading public that likes its news trustworthy and copious, but has no pronounced party leanings. Still, if it was a paper without political influence, it was one of great political use, for it invariably stated a question from all points of view with equal fairness, though it leant, if at all, from sheer editorial generosity, towards making the best of it for the weakest side. Thus a minority looked to it almost as to an advocate, and the majority knew that any strength that was against them would be set forth in The Centre, and that if none was pleaded there, the right and the triumph were together. Mr. Fisher liked Walter Hibbert; and though by tacit agreement their relations inside the office were purely formal, outside they were a good deal more intimate. Occasionally they took the form of a quiet dinner, or a few hours in the little house near Portland Road; for Florence was rather a favourite of the editors—perhaps, for one reason, because she was obviously of opinion that he ought to be married. A man generally likes a woman who pays him this compliment, especially when it is disinterested. Mr. Fisher was a widower and childless. There was some story connected with his marriage, but the Hibberts never heard the rights of it, and it was evidently a painful subject to him. All that was known in the office was that years before a gaunt-looking woman used to sometimes come for him, and that they always walked silently away together. Some one said once that he had married her because he had known her for years, and she was poor and he did not know how to provide for her except by marrying her, and that she was querulous and worried him a good deal. After a time she grew thin and feeble-looking. One day, about three years after the marriage, her death appeared in the paper; her husband looked almost relieved, but very sad, and no one ventured to ask him any questions.

As Walter walked along the Strand that morning he meditated on many ways of improving his condition and at the same time of not overworking himself. He found that it told on him considerably to be down late at the office three nights a week, writing his article, and then, with the excitement of work still upon him, to go home tired and hungry in the small hours of the morning. It was bad for Florence, too, for she generally sat up for him, declaring that to taste his supper and to have a little chat with him did her good and made her heart light. Sometimes he thought he would take up a different line altogether (he knew his editor would aid and abet him in anything for his good) and try living in the country, running up to town every day if necessary. But this would never do; it would only make him restive. His position was not yet strong enough to admit of his taking things so easily. It was important to him to live among men of knowledge and influence, to be in the whirl and twirl of things, and London was essentially the bull’s-eye, not only of wealth and commerce, but of most other things with which men of all degrees concern themselves.

And when he got to this point he came to the conclusion that he was thinking too much about himself. After all, he only wanted a month’s rest or a couple of months’ change of air; a friendly talk such as he might possibly get in the next quarter of an hour would probably bring about one or the other and in a far better form than he himself could devise it. Mr. Fisher was a man of infinite resource, not merely in regard to his paper, but for himself and his friends too, when they consulted him about their personal affairs. It was one of his characteristics that he liked being consulted. Walter felt that the best thing would be to get away alone with Florence, to some place where the climate had no cause to be ashamed of itself: he wanted to be sated with sunshine. It was no good going alone, and no matter how pleasant a friend went with him, a time always came when he wanted to go by one route and the friend by another. “Now, your wife,” he thought, “not only particularly longs to go by your route, but thinks you a genius for finding it out.”

He stopped for a moment to look at a bookshop; there was a box of second-hand books outside; he hesitated, but remembered that he had no time to stay. As he turned away some one touched him on the arm, and a voice said doubtfully—

“Will you speak to me, Walter?” He looked up and instantly held out his hand with a smile.

“Why, it’s Wimple,” he said; “how are you, old fellow? Of course I’ll speak to you. How are you?”

The man who had stopped him was about eight-and-twenty; he was tall and thin, his legs were too long and very rickety. To look at he was not prepossessing; he had a pinky complexion, pale reddish hair, and small round dark eyes with light lashes and weak lids. On either side of his face there were some straggling whiskers; his lips were thin and his whole expression very grave. His voice was low but firm in its tone, as though he wished to convey that even in small matters it would be useless to contradict him. He wore rather shabby dark clothes, his thin overcoat was unbuttoned and showed that the undercoat was faced with watered silk that had worn a little shiny; attached to his waistcoat was a watchguard made of brown hair ornamented here and there with bright gold clasps. He did not look strong or very flourishing. He was fairly gentleman-like, but only fairly so, and he did not look very agreeable. The apparent weakness of his legs seemed to prevent him from walking uprightly; he looked down a good deal at the toes of his boots, which were well polished. The oddest thing about him was that with all his unprepossessing appearance he had a certain air of sentiment; occasionally a sentimental tone stole into his voice, but he carefully repressed it. Walter remembered the moment he looked at him that the brown hair watchguard had been the gift of a pretty girl, the daughter of a tailor to whom he had made love as if in compensation for not paying her father’s bill. He wondered how it had ended, whether the girl had broken her heart for him, or found him out. But the next moment he hated himself for his ungenerous thoughts, and forcing them back spoke in as friendly a voice as he could manage. “It’s ages since we came across each other,” he said, “and I should not have seen you just now if you had not seen me.”

“I wasn’t sure whether you would speak to me,” Mr. Wimple said solemnly, as they walked on together, and then almost hurriedly, as if to avoid thinking about unpleasant things, he asked, “How is your wife?”

“All right, thank you. But how are you, and how are you getting on?”

“I am not at all well, Walter”—Mr. Wimple coughed, as if to show that he was delicate—“and my uncle has behaved shamefully to me.”

“Why, what has he done?” Walter asked, wishing that he felt more cordial, for he had known Alfred Wimple longer almost than he had known any one. Old acquaintance was not to be lightly put aside. It constituted a claim in Walter’s eyes as strong as did relationship, though it was only when the claim was made on him, and never when he might have pressed it for his own advantage, that he remembered it.

“Done! Why, he has turned me out of his office, just because he wanted to make room for the son of a rich client, for nothing else in the world.”

“That was rough,” Walter answered, thinking almost against his will that Wimple had never been very accurate and that this account was possibly not a fair one. “What excuse did he make?”

“He said my health was bad, that I was not strong enough to do the work, and had better take a few months’ holiday.”

“Well, but that was rather kind of him.”

“He didn’t mean it for kindness;” and Mr. Wimple looked at his friend with dull severity in his eyes. “He wanted to give my place in his office to some one else. But it is quite true about my health. I am very delicate, Walter. I must take a few months’ rest.”

“Then perhaps he was right after all. But can you manage the few months’ rest?” Walter asked, hesitating, for he knew the question was expected from him. In old days he had had so much to do with Wimple’s affairs that he did not like now to ignore them altogether.

“He makes me an allowance, of course, but it’s not sufficient,” Alfred Wimple answered reluctantly; “I wanted him to keep my post open for a few months, but he refused, though he’s the only relation I have.”

“Well, but he has been pretty good,” Walter said, in a pacific voice, “and perhaps he thinks you really want rest. It’s not bad of him to make you an allowance. It’s more than any one would do for me if I had to give up work for a bit.”

“He only does it because he can’t well refuse, and it’s a beggarly sum, after all.”

To which Walter answered nothing. He had always felt angry with himself for not liking Alfred better; they were such very old friends. They had been school-fellows long ago, and afterwards, when Walter was at Cambridge and Alfred was an articled clerk in London (he was by three years the younger of the two), there had been occasions when they had met and spent many pleasant hours together. To do Walter justice, it had always been Alfred who had sought him and not he who had sought Alfred, for in spite of the latter’s much professed affection Walter never wholly trusted him; he hated himself for it, but the fact remained. “The worst of Alfred is, that he lies,” he had said to himself long ago. He remembered his own remark to-day with a certain amount of reproach, but he knew that he had not been unjust; still, after all, he thought it was not so very great a crime: many people lied nowadays, sometimes merely to give their conversation an artistic value, and sometimes without even being aware of it. He was inclined to think that he had been rather hard on Alfred, who had been very constant to him. Besides, Wimple had been unlucky; he had been left a penniless lad to the care of an uncle, a rich City solicitor, who had not appreciated the charge; he had never had a soul who cared for him, and must have been very miserable and lonely at times. If he had had a mother or sister, or any one at all to look after him, he might have been different. Then, too, Walter remembered that once when he was very ill in the vacation it was Alfred who had turned up and nursed him with almost a woman’s anxiety. A kindness like that made a link too strong for a few disagreeables to break. He could not help thinking that he was a brute not to like his old friend better.

“I am sorry things are so bad with you, old man. You must come and dine and talk them over.”

Mr. Wimple looked him earnestly in the face.

“I don’t like to come,” he said in a half-ashamed, half-pathetic voice; “I behaved so badly to you about that thirty pounds; but luck was against me.”

“Never mind, you shall make it all right when luck is with you,” Walter answered cheerfully, determined to forget all unpleasant bygones. “Why not come to-night? we shall be alone.”

Mr. Wimple shook his head.

“No, not to-night,” he said; “I am not well, and I am going down to the country till Wednesday; it will do me good.” A little smile hovered round his mouth as he added, “some nice people in Hampshire have asked me to stay with them.”

“In Hampshire. Whereabouts in Hampshire?”

There was a certain hesitation in Mr. Wimple’s manner as he answered, “You don’t know them, and I don’t suppose you ever heard of the place, Walter; it is called Liphook.”

“Liphook? Why, of course I know it. It is on the Portsmouth line; we have a cottage, left us by my wife’s aunt only last year, in the same direction, only rather nearer town. How long are you going to stay there?”

“Till Wednesday. I will come and dine with you on Thursday, if you will have me.”

“All right, old man, 7.30. Perhaps you had better tell me where to write in case I have to put you off for business reasons.”

Mr. Wimple hesitated a minute, and then gave his London address, adding that he should be back on Wednesday night or Thursday morning at latest. They were standing by the newspaper office.

“Do you think there might be anything I could do here?” he asked, nodding at the poster outside the door; “I might review legal books or something of that sort.”

“I expect Fisher has a dozen men ready for anything at a moment’s notice,” Walter answered, “but I’ll put in a word for you if I get the chance;” and with a certain feeling of relief he shook his friend’s hand and rushed upstairs. The atmosphere seemed a little clearer when he was alone. “I’ll do what I can for him,” he thought, “but I can’t stand much of his company. There is a want of fresh air about him that bothers me so. Perhaps he could do a legal book occasionally, he used to write rather well. I’ll try what can be done.”

But his talk with Mr. Fisher was so important to himself and so interesting in many ways that he forgot all about Alfred until he was going out of the door; and then it was too late to speak about him. Suddenly a happy thought struck him—Mr. Fisher was to dine with him next week, he would ask Wimple also for Thursday. Then, if they got on, the rest would arrange itself. He remembered too that Alfred always dressed carefully and looked his best in the evening and laid himself out to be agreeable.

“By the way, Fisher, I wonder if you would come on Thursday instead of on Wednesday. I expect an old friend, and should like you to meet him; he is clever and rather off luck just now; of course you’ll get your chat with my wife all right—in fact, better if there are one or two people to engross me.”

“Very well, Thursday if you like; it will do just as well for me; I am free both evenings as far as I know.”

“Agreed, then.” And Walter went down the office stairs pleased at his own success.

“That horrid Mr. Wimple will spoil our dinner; I never liked him,” Florence exclaimed when she heard of the arrangement.

“I know you didn’t, and I don’t like him either, which is mean of me, for he’s a very old friend.”

“But if we neither of us like him, why should we inflict him on our lives?”

“We won’t; we’ll cut him as soon as he has five hundred a year; but it wouldn’t be fair to do so just now when he’s down on his luck; he and I have been friends too long for that.”

“But not very great friends?”

“Perhaps not; but we won’t throw him over in bad weather—try and be a little nice to him to please me, there’s a dear Floggie,” which instantly carried the day. “You had better ask Ethel Dunlop; Fisher is fond of music, and she will amuse him when he is tired of flirting with you,” Walter suggested.

“He’ll never tire of that,” she laughed, “but I’ll invite her if you like. She can sing while you talk to Mr. Wimple and your editor discusses European politics with me.”

“He’ll probably discuss politics outside Europe, if he discusses any,” her husband answered; “things look very queer in the East.”

“They always do,” she said wisely; “but I believe it’s all nonsense, and only our idea because we live so far off.”

“You had better tell Fisher to send me out to see.”

“Us, you mean.”

“No, me. They wouldn’t stand you, dear,” and he looked at her anxiously; “I shouldn’t be much surprised if he asked me to go for a bit—indeed, I think he has an idea of it.”

“Oh, Walter, it would be horrible.”

“Not if it did me good; sometimes I think I need a thorough change.”

She looked at him for a moment.

“No, not then,” she answered.

CHAPTER III.

lorence sat thinking over Walter’s hint concerning his health. She had succeeded in frightening herself a good deal; for there was really nothing the matter with him that rest and change would not set right. She remembered all the years he had been constantly at work, for even in their holidays he had taken away something he wanted to get done, and for the first time she realized how great the strain must have been upon him. “He must long for a change,” she thought, “for a break in his life, an upsetting of its present programme. The best thing of all would be a sea voyage. That would do him a world of good.” She fancied him on board a P. and O., walking up and down the long deck, drinking in life and strength. How vigorous he would grow; how sunburnt and handsome, and how delightful it would be to see him return. She hoped that Mr. Fisher would offer him a special correspondentship for a time, or something that would break the routine of his life and give him the excitement and pleasure that a spell of rest and complete change would entail. She would talk to Mr. Fisher herself, she thought. He always liked arranging other people’s lives; he was so clever in setting things right for any one who consulted him, and so helpful; and no doubt he had noticed already that Walter was looking ill.

“But he is quite well; it is nothing but overwork, and that can soon be set right——”

There was a double knock at the street door.

It was only eleven o’clock, too early for visitors. Florence left off thinking of Walter to wonder who it could be. The door was opened and shut, the servant’s footsteps going up to the drawing-room were followed by others so soft that they could scarcely be heard at all.

“Mrs. Baines, ma’am. She told me to say that she was most anxious to see you.”

“Mrs. Baines?” Florence exclaimed absently. It was so long since she had seen Aunt Anne, and she had never heard her called by her formal name, that for the moment she was puzzled. Then she remembered and went up quickly to meet her visitor.

Aunt Anne was sitting on the little yellow couch near the window. She looked thin and spare, as she had done at Brighton, but she had a woebegone air now that had not belonged to her then. She was in deep mourning; there was a mass of crape on her bonnet, and a limp cashmere shawl clung about her shoulders. She rose slowly as Florence entered, but did not advance a single step.

She stretched out her arms; the black shawl gave them the appearance of wings; they made her look, as she stood with her back to the light, like a large bat. But the illusion was only momentary, and then the wan face, the many wrinkles, and the nervous twitch of the left eye all helped to make an effect that was pathetic enough.

“Florence,” she said in a tremulous voice, “I felt that I must see you and Walter again,” and she folded Mrs. Hibbert to her heart.

“I am very glad to see you, Aunt Anne,” Florence answered simply. “Are you quite well, and are you staying in London?—But you are in deep mourning; I hope you have not had any very sad loss?”

The tears came into the poor old lady’s eyes.

“My dear,” she said still more tremulously than before, “you are evidently not aware of my great bereavement; but I might have known that, for if you had been you would have written to me. Florence, I am a widow; I am alone in the world.”

Mrs. Hibbert put her hands softly on Aunt Anne’s and kissed her.

“I didn’t know, I had no idea, and Walter had not——”

“I knew it. Don’t think that I have wronged either you or him. I knew that you were ignorant of all that had happened to me or you would have written to express your sympathy, though, if you had, I might not even have received your letter, for I have been homeless too,” Mrs. Baines said sadly. She stopped for a moment; then, watching Florence intently, she went on in a choking voice, “Mr. Baines has been dead more than eight months. He died as he had lived, my darling. He thought of you both three weeks before his death,” and her left eye winked.

“It was very kind of him,” Florence said gratefully; “and you, dear Aunt Anne,” she asked gently, “are you staying in London for the present? Where are you living?”

It seemed as if Aunt Anne gathered up all her strength to answer.

“My dear, I am in London because I am destitute—destitute, Florence, and—and I have to work for my living.”

Her niece was too much astonished to answer for a minute.

“But, Aunt Anne,” she exclaimed, “how can you work? what can you have strength to do, you poor dear?”

Aunt Anne hesitated a moment; she winked again in an absent unconscious manner, and then answered with great solemnity:

“I have accepted a post at South Kensington as chaperon to a young married lady whose husband is abroad. She has a young sister staying with her, and her husband does not approve of their being alone without some older person to protect them.”

“It is very brave of you to go out into the world now,” Florence said admiringly.

“My dear, it would be most repugnant to me to be a burden to any one, even to those who love me best; that is why—why I did it, Florence.”

“And are they kind to you? do they treat you quite properly?” Mrs. Hibbert inquired anxiously.

The old lady drew herself up and answered severely:

“I should not stay with them an hour if they ever forgot what was due to me. They treat me with the greatest respect.”

“But why have you been obliged to do this, you poor Aunt Anne? Had Mr. Baines no money to leave you?”

Aunt Anne’s mouth twitched as she heard the “Mr. Baines,” but Florence had never thought of him as anything else, and when the two last words slipped out she felt it would be better to go on and not to notice her mistake.

“No, my love, at his death his income ceased; there was barely enough for immediate expenses, and then—and then I had to go out into the world.”

It was terrible to see how keenly Aunt Anne suffered; how fully alive she was to the sad side of her own position. Poor old lady, it was impossible to help feeling very much for her, Florence thought.

“And had he no relations at all who could help you, dear?” she asked, wondering that none should have held out a helping hand.

“No, not one. I married for love, as you did; that is one reason why I knew that you would feel for me.”

There was a world of sadness in her voice as she said the last words; her face seemed to grow thinner and paler as she related her troubles. She looked far older, too, than she had done on the Brighton day. The little lines about her face had become wrinkles; her hair was scantier and greyer; her eyes deeper set in her head; her hands were the thin dry hands of old age.

Florence ached for her, and pondered things over for a moment. Walter was not rich, and he was not strong just now; the hint of yesterday had sunk deep in her heart. Still, he and she must try and make this poor soul’s few remaining years comfortable, if no one else could be found on whom she had a claim. She did not think she could ask Aunt Anne to come and live with them; she remembered an aunt who had lived in her girlhood’s home, who had not been a success. But they might for all that do something; the old lady could not be left to the wide world’s tender mercies. Florence knew but little of her husband’s relations, except that he had no near or intimate ones left, but there might be some outlying cousins sufficiently near to Aunt Anne to make their helping her a moral obligation.

“Have you no friends—no relations at all, dear Aunt Anne?” she asked.

With a long sigh Mrs. Baines answered:

“Florence”—she gave a gulp before she went on, as if to show that what she had to tell was almost too sad to be put into words,—“Sir William Rammage is my own cousin, he has thousands and thousands a year, and he refuses to allow me anything. I went to him when I first came to London and begged him to give me a small income so that I might not be obliged to go out into the world; but he said that he had so many claims upon him that it was impossible. Yet he and I were babes together; we lay in the same cradle once, while our mothers stood over us, hand in hand. But though we had not met since we were six years old till I went to him in my distress a few months ago, he refused to do anything for me.”

“Have you been in London long then, Aunt Anne?”

“I have been here five months, Florence. I took a lodging on the little means I had left, and then—and then I had to struggle as best I could.”

“You should have come to us before, poor dear.”

“I should have done so, my love, but—my lodging was too simple, and I was not in a position to receive you as I could have wished. I waited, hoping that Sir William would see that it was incumbent on him to make me an adequate allowance; but he has not done so.”

“And won’t he do anything for you? If he is rich he might do something temporarily, even if he won’t make you a permanent allowance. Has he done nothing?”

Mrs. Baines shook her head sadly.

“He sent me some port wine, my love, but port wine is always pernicious to me; I wrote and told him so, but he did not even reply. It is not four years ago since he was Lord Mayor of London, and yet he will do nothing for me.”

She had lost her air of distress, there was a dogged dignity in her manner; she stood up and looked at her niece; it seemed as if, in speaking of Sir William Rammage, she remembered that the world had used her shamefully, and she had determined to give it back bitter scorn for its indifference to her griefs.

“Lord Mayor of London,” Mrs. Hibbert repeated, and rubbed her eyes a little; it seemed like part of a play and not a very sane one—the old lady, her deep mourning, her winking left eye, and the sudden introduction of a Lord Mayor.

“Yes, Lord Mayor of London,” repeated Mrs. Baines, “and he lets me work for my daily bread.”

“Is Walter also related to the Lord Mayor?”

“No, my love. Your Walter’s grandfather married twice; I was the daughter of the first marriage—my mother was the daughter of a London merchant—your Walter’s father was the son of the second marriage.”

“It is too complicated to understand,” Florence answered in despair. “And is there no one else, Aunt Anne?”

“There are many others, but they are indifferent as he is, they are cold and hard, Florence; that is a lesson one has to learn when fortune deserts one,” and the old lady shook her head mournfully.

“But, dear Aunt Anne,” Florence said, aghast at this sudden vista of the world, “tell me who they are besides Sir William Rammage; let Walter try what can be done. Surely they cannot all be as cold and hard as you think.”

“It is of no use, my love,” Mrs. Baines said sadly.

“But perhaps you are mistaken, and they will after all do something for you. Do tell me who they are.”

Mrs. Baines drew herself up proudly; the tears that had seemed to be on their way a minute ago must have retreated suddenly, for her eyes looked bright, and she spoke in a quick, determined voice.

“My love,” she said, “you must not expect me to give you an account of all my friends and relations and of what they will or will not do for me. Don’t question me, my love, for I cannot allow it—I cannot indeed. I have told you that I am destitute, that I am a widow, that I am working for my living; and that must suffice. I am deeply attached to you and Walter; there is in my heart a picture that will never be effaced of you and him standing in our garden at Rottingdean, of your going away in the sunshine with flowers and preserve in your hands—the preserve that I myself had made. It is because I love you that I have come to you to-day, and because I feel assured that you love me; but you must remember, Florence, that I am your aunt and you must treat me with proper respect and consideration.”

“But, Aunt Anne——” Florence began astonished.

Mrs. Baines put her hand on Mrs. Hibbert’s shoulder.

“There there,” she said forgivingly, “I know you did not mean to hurt me, but”—and here her voice grew tender and tremulous again—“no one, not even you or Walter, must presume, for I cannot allow it. There—kiss me,” and she pulled Florence’s head down on to her breast, while suddenly—for there were wonderfully quick transitions of feeling expressed on the old wan face all through the interview—a smile that was almost joyous came to her lips. “I am so glad to see you again, my dear,” she said; “I have looked forward to this day for years. I loved you from the very first moment I saw you at Brighton, and I have always loved your Walter. I wish,” she went on, as Florence gently disengaged herself from the black cashmere embrace, “I wish you could remember him a little boy as I do. He had the darkest eyes and the lightest hair in the world.”

“His hair is a beautiful brown now,” her niece answered, rather thankfully.

“Yes, my love, it is,” the old lady said, with a little glee at the young wife’s pride. “And so is yours. I think you have the prettiest hair I ever saw.” There was not a shade of flattery in her voice, so that Florence was appeased after the severe snub of a moment ago, and smoothed her plaits with much complacency. “And now, tell me when will your dear one be at home, for I long to see him?”

“He is very uncertain, Aunt Anne; I fear he has no fixed time; but I know that he will try and make one to see you when he hears that you are in town.”

“I am sure he will,” Mrs. Baines said, evidently certain that there was no doubt at all about that. “Are the dear children at home?” she inquired. “I long for a sight of them.”

“Shall I call them?”

“Yes, my love; it will do my heart good to look at them.”

Nothing loth, Florence opened the door and called upstairs:

“Monty and Catty, are you there, my beauties? I want you, my chicks.”

There was a quick patter-patter overhead, a door opened and two little voices answered both at once—

“We’ll come, mummy, we’ll come.”