“It was very vexing; I wish we had never seen him, don’t you?”
“What, Wimple? I should think so. I asked Fisher if he knew the fellow’s address; he says the last time he heard of him he was somewhere near Gray’s Inn Road. I wonder if she was with him?”
“Walter!” exclaimed Florence, and she almost clutched his arm, “I believe she is over there. Perhaps that is why she has been running in our thoughts all day.”
A little distance off, on a bench under a tree, sat a spare black figure, with what looked like a cashmere shawl pulled round the slight shoulders. Limp and sad the figure looked: there was an expression of loneliness in every line of it.
“It is very like her,” Walter said. They went a little nearer; they were almost beside her; but they could not see her face, which was turned away from them.
“Oh, it must be she,” Florence said, in a whisper. Perhaps she heard their footsteps, for the black bonnet turned slowly round, and, sure enough, there was the face of Aunt Anne. It looked thin and woebegone.
“Aunt Anne! Dear Aunt Anne! Why have you left us all this time without a sign?” and Florence put her arms round the slender shoulders.
“Aunt Anne! Why, this is real good luck!” Walter exclaimed.
“My dear Florence, my dear Walter,” the old lady said, looking at them with a half-dazed manner; “bless you, dear children; it does me good to see you.”
“You don’t deserve it, you know,” he said tenderly, “for cutting us.”