Maggie sprang up and kissed her, somewhat effusively for Maggie, and said in a quiet, restrained tone—
“Many happy returns of the day, auntie.”
Then Edwin rose, scraping his arm-chair backwards along the floor, and shook hands with her, and said with a guilty grin—
“A long life and a merry one, auntie!”
“Eh!” she exclaimed, falling back with a sigh of satisfaction into a chair by the table. “I’m sure everybody’s very kind. Will you believe me, those darling children of Clara’s were round at my house before eight o’clock this morning!”
“Is Amy’s cough better?” Maggie interjected, as she and Edwin sat down.
“Bless ye!” cried Auntie Hamps, “I was in such a fluster I forgot to ask the little toddler. But I didn’t hear her cough. I do hope it is. October’s a bad time for coughs to begin. I ought to have asked. But I’m getting an old woman.”
“We were just arguing whether you were thirty-eight or thirty-nine, auntie,” said Edwin.
“What a tease he is—with his beard!” she archly retorted. “Well, your old aunt is sixty this day.”
“Sixty!” the nephew and niece repeated together in astonishment.