The tears came into the poor old lady’s eyes.
“My dear,” she said still more tremulously than before, “you are evidently not aware of my great bereavement; but I might have known that, for if you had been you would have written to me. Florence, I am a widow; I am alone in the world.”
Mrs. Hibbert put her hands softly on Aunt Anne’s and kissed her.
“I didn’t know, I had no idea, and Walter had not——”
“I knew it. Don’t think that I have wronged either you or him. I knew that you were ignorant of all that had happened to me or you would have written to express your sympathy, though, if you had, I might not even have received your letter, for I have been homeless too,” Mrs. Baines said sadly. She stopped for a moment; then, watching Florence intently, she went on in a choking voice, “Mr. Baines has been dead more than eight months. He died as he had lived, my darling. He thought of you both three weeks before his death,” and her left eye winked.
“It was very kind of him,” Florence said gratefully; “and you, dear Aunt Anne,” she asked gently, “are you staying in London for the present? Where are you living?”
It seemed as if Aunt Anne gathered up all her strength to answer.
“My dear, I am in London because I am destitute—destitute, Florence, and—and I have to work for my living.”
Her niece was too much astonished to answer for a minute.
“But, Aunt Anne,” she exclaimed, “how can you work? what can you have strength to do, you poor dear?”