"But what would London do without them?" asked Alizon, much amused at this new view of the subject.
"Much better," retorted Aunt Jelly, sharply. "In my young days, before steam and electricity upset everything, people stayed in their own houses. But now everyone comes up to London. A cake's no good if the currants are all in one place. Scatter them, and it's an improvement."
"There's a good deal of truth in what you say," remarked Alizon, quietly. "If literary men and musicians, for instance, made little centres of art and letters all over the three kingdoms, it would be more beneficial in every way than centralising everything in London."
"Literature! Bah!" said Miss Corbin, with scorn; "milk-and-water novels about religion and society, bilious essays, and fault-finding critics--that's what you call literature now-a-days. As for music, I don't know much about it. 'The Maiden's Prayer' and the 'Battle of Prague' were thought good enough when I was young. But now it's all systems and theories, and what they call sixths and sevenths. A very good name, too," concluded the old lady, grimly, "for the whole lot of them do seem at sixes and sevens."
"Ah! you see, everything is improving," said Guy, meekly, not having any idea about what he was talking, but only making a vain endeavour to stay Aunt Jelly's rancorous tongue.
"It's more than manners are," replied the old lady, tartly. "Minnie, don't twiddle your fingers so. It annoys me. Humph! so you're going down to Errington to play the Lord of the Manor and your wife Lady Bountiful. Mind you take care of yourself, my dear; the mists down there are very bad for the throat."
"I don't think they are bad, Aunt Jelly," expostulated Guy, indignant that she should try to prejudice Alizon against her future home.
"Oh, you think about nothing!" said Aunt Jelly, coolly. "I tell you the place is unhealthy. Bless the man, don't I know what I'm talking about? Look at that girl," pointing to the shrinking Minnie, who was dreadfully upset at having public attention thus drawn to her--"she's lived all her life at Denfield, and what has she had? Measles, whooping-cough, neuralgia; she was a pale rickety mass of disease when she came to me. What built her up? Port wine. I tell you the place is unhealthy, and mind you take plenty of port wine and beef tea, Alizon, or you'll go out some day like the snuff of a candle. I've seen several of your sort go that way."
"Aunt," cried Guy, rising to his feet in a rage, "how can you speak so! Hang it all! talk of something more cheerful. I didn't bring my wife here to be frightened out of her wits."
"Pooh! nonsense! Don't you get angry," said the old lady, quite pleased at upsetting her good-tempered nephew, "What's the good of being an old woman if you can't say what you like? Well, go down home at once, and perhaps next year I'll pay you a visit."