“I’m quite well, thank you, Mrs. Aviolet.”
They shook hands, and Rose said, “This is my kid—Cecil. Makes you feel time’s gone on a bit, doesn’t it?”
“I should never have guessed it but for this young gentleman,” Mr. Millar declared gallantly. “You haven’t altered in the very least.”
“Gammon!” said Mrs. Aviolet with a jovial heartiness that she had seldom permitted herself at Squires. “Give the cabby a hand with the box, will you? Is Uncle A. in the shop?”
“Upstairs. There’s a sitting-room on the first floor, now-a-days. Here’s the girl, she’ll show you the way.”
“A girl too! Whatever next?” murmured Rose.
She paid the cabman, took Cecil’s hand, and followed the small maid into the house. Cecil’s eyes widened as they went through the shop, with a counter down one side of it, glass show-cases on the other, an iron safe beyond the counter, and a match-board partition across one half of the room. Beyond this, again, was a dark and steep staircase, which they ascended.
“Why is it so dark, Mummie?”
“Hush! There’s Uncle Alfred.”
A short, stout figure loomed at the top of the stairs, and a small white imperial scrubbed Rose’s face. With Cecil, Uncle Alfred only shook hands.