"Ah, Aldyth, is it you? Well, it is a happy chance that we should meet thus. Yes, you may well be surprised to see me here; but business brought me to town. I came up on business."
Aldyth could not remember that her uncle had ever come up to London on business before. He was wont to manage all his business through the agency of Mr. Ralph Greenwood.
"Were you coming to see me, uncle?" she asked.
"Well, no, I was not," he answered, still with a shade of embarrassment in his manner; "I have finished my business, and I thought I would take a little look about town before going home by the evening train."
"Then you will come and see mamma?" said Aldyth, eagerly. "She will be so pleased to see you."
The old man did not at once reply. He only smiled a peculiar, grim smile, which said, as plainly as words could utter it, "But I should not be pleased to see her."
"Do you really think she would be pleased?" he asked sarcastically, after a few moments. "Suppose she had some of her fashionable friends with her, would she be delighted, do you think, to see a queer, old-fashioned countryman like me come into her fine drawing room?"
"I do not believe that would make any difference, uncle," Aldyth said.
He laughed sceptically.
"Ah, my dear, you must excuse me," he said; "I knew your mother before you were born."