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Ruth could hardly believe that this was the sharp-voiced, prying old lady whom she had wished to escape meeting earlier in the afternoon. "Dear Miss Cynthia," she answered impulsively, "I never shall forget your Great-aunt Cynthia, and I shall be delighted to own something that belonged to her. I'm sure I never had anything half so lovely as this cobwebby handkerchief.
She had been very civil to her great-aunt Lilias, and had allowed both her uncles to take her up in their arms; but she retreated upon Angela, planted an elbow on the well-known lap, turned her back, and put a skinny little finger in her mouth by way of answer to Susan's advances, advances which had hardly ever before been repelled even by the most untamable of infants.
Dad wants him to leave the Army and settle down on his estate. He owns a big place about twelve miles away that an old great-aunt of his left him. Dad thinks a landowner ought to live at home if he can afford to. And of course Nick might go into Parliament too. He's so clever, and rich as well. But he won't do it. So it's no good talking."
They were therefore as much displeased as surprised by the sudden appearance to them of their great-aunt, very haggard, her usual extreme timidity swept away by overmastering emotion. She clutched at the two merchants with a great sob of relief: "Stephen! Eli! Come back to the house," she cried, and before they could stop her was hobbling away.
He passed the chamber where the Great-Aunt Grantley lay, who was to swell Richard's fortune, and so perform her chief business on earth. By her door he murmured, "Good creature! you sleep with a sense of duty done," and paced on, reflecting, "She has not made money a demon of discord," and blessed her. He had his thoughts at Hippias's somnolent door, and to them the world might have subscribed.
There's Grandfather Lambert, and your Great-aunt Lucia, and old Mr. Selby, and oh, I can't think, Joyce! What's all this foolishness anyway?" Joyce saw at once that she was getting at nothing very definite along this line and determined on a bold move. "Well, who is the old lady that you spoke of once, who, you said, knew something about that queer old boarded-up house next door?"
The thought of little Dollie, frightened, but unhurt, of Rob who had so bravely saved her, of Lena's pride in Rob, flitted through her mind. It would be a pleasant bit of news to tell Rose. Then she began to think of Great-Aunt Rose, and to wonder how she looked. "Rose has told me in her letter that she's a handsome old lady, but that isn't like seeing her. How ever SHALL I know her?
She didn't at all approve of them, and said she liked under-things that would boil. She has always had very dainty things made by herself; Great-aunt Alison taught her to do beautiful fine sewing.... Jean is a delightful person to do things with; she brings such a freshness to everything is never bored, never blasé. I was glad to see her so deeply interested in new clothes.
To my great-grandmother's funeral came many distant relatives I had never rested eye on before ... especially there came my Great-aunt Rachel, Granma Gregory's sister, a woman just as sweet-natured as she, and almost her twin even to the blue rupture of a vein in the middle of the lower lip.
"Ye're come in time," said Auntie Meg, and whispered to the old woman�-"My brither Jeames's bairn." "Ay, ye're come in time, lassie," said the great-aunt kindly, and said no more. The dying man heard the words, opened his eyes, glanced once at Annie, and closed them again. "Is that ane o' the angels come?" he asked, for his wits were gone a little way before.
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