"Yes, but you know it might have been worse—you might have been left with eight!" Certainly my suggestion had the desired effect, for she responded briskly, "You're quite right, miss, so I might!" Yet my matter-of-fact condolence long furnished Olive with a joke at my expense.

We had left the common and were descending a long, narrow lane with trees on either side. The mud was rather slippery, and Jack had to give all his attention to his horse. Then we mounted a shorter hill, and the white gate came in sight. It had been set open in anticipation of our arrival, and we drove at once up the short drive to the door of the long, low, red-bricked house, a very ordinary-looking abode with five straight windows piercing the upper part, and below two on each side of the white porch, yet not without a certain individuality of its own. In summer, green creepers and climbing roses beautified the front of the house, but now their branches showed bare and brown as they clung to it.

I need not have dreaded the meeting with my aunt. She came smiling to the door as Jack helped me down from the phaeton. Her face looked pale and thin, but there was the sweet, loving look in her eyes I had always seen there, and every sign of sorrow was resolutely held in check. Always slight in appearance, she looked slimmer than ever in her plain, black gown. It was strange to see her wearing the little gauzy cap with its long, white streamers, but it did not take me long to decide that it was eminently becoming to my aunt's winsome face, at once so gentle and so strong.

"I am very glad to see you, dearest Nan," she said. "It is so good of you to come to me."

"Good of me to come" when it had been "Hobson's choice" as far as I was concerned! But it was like Aunt Patty to put it in that way.

Jack did not stay a minute after he had seen my luggage carried into the house. He drove off, saying that he would be sure to see me again before long.

With her arm about me, aunt led me across the wide hall. The little room to the left of the entrance had been uncle's peculiar sanctum, and Sweep, his favourite dog, a black retriever, lay on the mat outside it. She viewed my arrival with indifference, and only faintly wagged her tail when I bent to pat her. With her forepaws extended and her muzzle resting on them she crouched in an attitude of profound dejection.

"You must be dreadfully tired, dear Nan," aunt said. "A cosy tea will be ready in a few moments. Perhaps 

 Prev. P 23/160 next