"They is all large, ma'am," said the driver.
"The largest," said Mrs. Greenow.
"They're much of a muchness," said the driver.
"Then Mrs. Jones's," said Mrs. Greenow. "But I was particularly told it was the largest in the row."
"I know Mrs. Jones's well," said the driver, and away they went.
Mrs. Jones's house was handsome and comfortable; but I fear Mrs. Greenow's satisfaction in this respect was impaired by her disappointment in finding that it was not perceptibly bigger than those to the right and left of her. Her ambition in this and in other similar matters would have amused Kate greatly had she been a bystander, and not one of her aunt's party. Mrs. Greenow was good-natured, liberal, and not by nature selfish; but she was determined not to waste the good things which fortune had given, and desired that all the world should see that she had forty thousand pounds of her own. And in doing this she was repressed by no feeling of false shame. She never hesitated in her demands through bashfulness. She called aloud for such comfort and grandeur as Yarmouth could afford her, and was well pleased that all around should hear her calling. Joined to all this was her uncontrolled grief for her husband's death.
"Dear Greenow! sweet lamb! Oh, Kate, if you'd only known that man!" When she said this she was sitting in the best of Mrs. Jones's sitting-rooms, waiting to have dinner announced. She had taken a drawing-room and dining-room, "because," as she had said, "she didn't see why people should be stuffy when they went to the seaside;—not if they had means to make themselves comfortable."
"Oh, Kate, I do wish you'd known him!"
"I wish I had," said Kate,—very untruly. "I was unfortunately away when he went to Vavasor Hall."
"Ah, yes; but it was at home, in the domestic circle, that Greenow should have been seen to be appreciated. I was a happy woman, Kate, while that lasted." And Kate was surprised to see that real tears—one or two on each side—were making their way down her aunt's cheeks. But they were soon checked with a handkerchief of the broadest hem and of the finest cambric.