“Well, first when she got out of the carriage, covered with jet anchor chains—for you know Uncle Samuel died only three months ago and left her all his money—she caught sight of our heads staring at her out of the drawing-room window, and asked father if he kept a girls’ school. Then she made mother cry by remarking that she ought to be thankful to Providence for having taken to its bosom the four of us who died young —you know she has no children herself and so can’t feel about them. Also father was furious because she told him that at least half of us should have been boys. He turned quite pink and said:
“‘I have been taught, Lady Thompson, that these are matters which God Almighty keeps in His own hands, and to Him I must refer you.’
“‘Good gracious! don’t get angry,’ she answered. ‘If you clergymen can cross-examine your Maker, I am not in that position. Besides, they are all very good-looking girls who may find husbands, if they ever see a man. So things might have been worse.’
“Then she made remarks about the tea, for Uncle Samuel was a tea-merchant; and lastly that wicked Janey sent the footman to take the pug dog to walk past the butcher’s shop where the fighting terrier lives. You can guess the rest.”
“Was the pug killed?” asked Anthony.
“No, though the poor thing came back in a bad way. I never knew before that a pug’s tail was so long when it is quite uncurled. But the footman looked almost worse, for he got notice on the spot. You see he went into the ‘Red Dragon’ and left the pug outside.”
“And here endeth Aunt Maria and all her works,” said Anthony, who wanted to talk of other things.
“No, not quite.”
He looked at her, for there was meaning in her voice.
“In fact,” she went on, “so far as I’m concerned it ought to run, ‘Here beginneth Aunt Maria.’ You see, I have got to go and live with her to-morrow.”