"Oh, papa, what a lovely old house!" cried the girl involuntarily. "Did
you know it was like this?"
Dr. Harley smiled.
"I suppose you think it lovely, Edith. I have often wondered, for my own
part, why your aunt should bury herself here. But come--jump out; there
she is at the door. The King's Majesty would not draw her to the garden
gate, I think."
Edith got out of the cab, feeling like a girl in a dream, and followed
her father up the gravel walk, noting mechanically the gorgeous
colouring of tulips and hyacinths that filled the flower-beds on either
hand.
A tall, grey-haired lady, well advanced in life, came slowly forward,
holding out a thin, cold hand, and saying in a frigid tone, "Well,
brother, so we meet again after these ten years. I hope you are well,
and have left your wife and family well also."
[Sidenote: A Doubtful Welcome]
"Quite well, thank you, Rachel, excepting Maria, who is never very well,
you know," said the doctor heartily, taking the half-proffered hand in
both his. "And how are you, after all this long time? You don't look a
day older than when we parted."
"I am sorry I cannot return the compliment," remarked the lady, with a
grim smile. "I suppose it is all the care and worry of your great family
of children that have aged you so. And Maria was always such a poor,
shiftless creature. I daresay, now, with all that your boys and girls
cost you, you have two or three servants to keep, instead of making the
girls work, and saving the wages and the endless waste that the best of
servants make.
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