She was met at the door by Caroline with a face which promised no good news.
"Has any one come?" she asked.
"Well, yes, honey, somebody has come, though I'm afraid it isn't any one you want to see very bad."
"Not Aunt Dorinda!" exclaimed Anna, rather more loudly than was prudent, considering the tone in which she spoke.
"Hush, my dear! She will hear you! Yes, it is Aunt Dorinda, sure enough! Never mind, honey, we can't help it now. We must only make the best of it, that's all."
"Aunt Dorinda, of all people!" thought Anna, as she went to her room to take off her hat. "Well, there is an end to all my fine plans. However, as Caroline says, there is no help for it now. Poor thing, I suppose I may as well have her for a little while as anybody else. I must just leave off studying painting and study patience, that is all."
Poor Aunt Dorinda! She was a woman of a good deal of talent. She was tolerably rich, and decidedly well educated; and she fully intended to be a Christian, and to do a great deal of good in the world; and yet there was not one of all the families she visited who did not dread to see her come into the house, or who did not feel relieved when she went away.
All this inconsistency is easily explained. Aunt Dorinda never did or could mind her own business, and let the affairs of other people alone. She was possessed with a great desire to do good, and she was always making presents; but she wished always to do good exactly in her own way; and her presents were generally accompanied with remarks and admonitions which rendered them bitter pills to those who were obliged to accept them.
"So it seems I have come just in the nick of time!" said she to her niece, after the first greeting. "I do wonder your mother should have you to keep house alone. I don't suppose you know anything about it."
"I don't have very much housekeeping to do, Aunt Dorinda," replied Anna. "Caroline is the housekeeper when mamma is away. And I did not expect to be alone either, for Lillie Adams was coming to stay with me, only she was obliged to go away unexpectedly."