"Ah, I have never seen that," said Aunt Laura. "I have seen Kemsale, my cousin Humphrey's place. I hear there is to be a ball there to-morrow night, and I suppose you are all going. I shall not be able to be present, although I have received an invitation. It was very thoughtful of Eleanor Kemsale to send me one. She must have known that my advanced age would make it impossible for me to accept, but she knew also that I should feel it if I were left out, for for a number of years there was no entertainment of that sort at Kemsale to which I and my dear sisters, who are now all dead, were not invited."
Lady Susan had been looking round the room. "What lovely old prints you have!" she said.
"They are old-fashioned things," replied Aunt Laura, "but I like them. They do not actually belong to me. I brought them from the dower-house, where I and my sisters lived for a number of years. But wait—if you will come into the dining-room, where there is a fire and you need not be afraid of catching cold, I will show you something that does belong to me, and very pleased I am to have it."
"Oh, I think we'd better stay here, Aunt Laura," said Humphrey.
But Aunt Laura had already risen. "No, Humphrey," she said. "I must show Lady Susan the present you gave me, which has afforded me the greatest pleasure."
So they followed her into the little square, panelled dining-room, where she led them to an old engraving of "Kencote Park, Meadshire, the Seat of John Clinton, Esq.," which showed, besides the many-windowed, rectangular house, a large sheet of water with a Grecian temple on its banks, and certain gentlemen in tall hats and ladies with parasols feeding swans and apparently refusing the invitation of one of their number, who was seated in a boat, to go for a nice row.
"That is the house," explained Aunt Laura, "as it was when my grandfather altered it, and made the lake, which is now all grown round with rhododendrons and other trees, so that you cannot see it, as it is represented there. But I think it is a fine picture."
She put her little grey head crowned by its cap of lace and ribbons on one side, bird-like, as if she were trying to judge how the house might strike a stranger. "It was not in that house your ancestor lived," she told Lady Susan. "That was burnt down, more's the pity, for I believe it was still larger and finer than the present one. I should like to possess a picture of it, but that is impossible because none exists. At any rate, it was very kind of Humphrey to find this one for me and have it well framed, as you see, and give it to me for a Christmas present. It is such little attentions as that that people value, my dear, when they come to my age."
As they walked away along the village street Lady Susan said to Humphrey, "I do think it was nice of you to give the old lady that picture. It seems to have pleased her very much."
"Oh, it was nothing," said Humphrey. "And she's worth pleasing."