"Do you not know me, dear aunt?" said Agnes, approaching her, and timidly holding out her hand.
"Your aunt?... am I really your aunt?... Is it possible that you are my poor brother's grandchild?"
"I am Agnes Willoughby," replied the young girl, puzzled and almost frightened by the doubts and the agitation she witnessed.
"If you are!" exclaimed Miss Compton, suddenly embracing her, "I am a more guilty creature than I ever thought to be!"
At this moment, and while the arms of the diminutive spinster were still twined round the person of Agnes, who had just decided in her own mind that her great-aunt was the most unintelligible person in the world, the door of the little parlour opened with a jerk that shewed it yielded to no weak hand, and the full-blown person of the widow Barnaby stood before them. Her eyes and her rouge were as bright as ever, and her sober cap and sable draperies vainly, as it should seem, endeavoured to soften those peculiarities of the Wisett aspect against which Miss Compton had sworn eternal hatred, for never had she appeared more detestable; her usual bravura manner indeed was somewhat exaggerated by her indignation at the concealment which had been attempted, and which had been adroitly pointed out to her by the sharp-witted Betty Jacks.
"Soh!... you thought I should not find you out, I suppose!" she exclaimed, as she shut the door behind her.
"God give me patience!" cried the irritated recluse, suddenly disengaging herself from Agnes. "This is strange persecution, Mrs. Barnaby," and as she spoke she endeavoured to effect her retreat. But this could not be done in a straight direction, inasmuch as it required a considerable circuit safely to weather either side of the expansive widow; and before Miss Compton reached the door, that lady had so established herself before it as to render her leaving the room without permission absolutely impossible.
The time had been, when the hope of "getting something out of the little hunch-back," would have enabled Mrs. Barnaby to put a very strong restraint upon any feeling likely to offend her, but this was over. She thought her turn was come now, and considered her own revenues and her own position as so immeasurably superior to those of the little "old woman clothed in grey" who stood shaking before her, that her pride would never have forgiven her avarice had it led her to neglect this favourable opportunity of displaying some of the contempt and scorn which she had felt she had heretofore received from her.
"Upon my word, Miss Compton," she began, "I do really wonder you are not ashamed of yourself, to come visiting this vulgar body Mrs. Sims, instead of profiting by the notice of your own relations, which might do you honour. And your dress, Miss Compton!... What must my niece, Miss Willoughby, think, at seeing the sister of her own grandfather going about in such a horrid, coarse, miserable stuff gown as that? We all know how you have been squandering your little property upon the beggars you get to flatter you, but that is no reason for behaving as you do towards me. My excellent husband has left me in circumstances of such affluence as might enable me to assist you by the gift of some of my own clothes, if you conducted yourself as you ought to do."
This harangue would probably have been cut short, had Miss Compton retained breath enough to articulate; but astonishment and indignation almost choked her; instead of speaking, she stood still and panted, till Agnes, inexpressibly shocked and terrified, moved a chair towards her, and entreated her to sit down. Her only reply, however, was rudely pushing Agnes and her chair aside, and then, with a sort of desperate effort, exclaiming,—