"If you please, mum, Miss Vesey says, will you walk in? She's upstairs."
Miss Macleod walked in, her nephew always at her heels. The bare-headed man stared after them, as though he did not understand this mode of procedure in the least.
"Up the stairs, first door to the right," continued the woman who had bade them enter. As, in accordance with these directions, Miss Macleod proceeded to mount the stairs, the woman, who still stood at the open door, addressed herself to the bare-headed man at the gate. Her words were sufficiently audible.
"You brute!" she said, and banged the door in his face.
Seemingly unconscious of there being anything peculiar about the house or its inhabitants, Miss Macleod strode up the stairs. The Rev. Alan, conscious for himself and his aunt as well, crept uncomfortably after. The first door on the right stood wide open. Miss Macleod unceremoniously entered the room. Her nephew followed sheepishly in the rear.
The room was a good-sized one, and was scantily furnished. One striking piece of furniture, however, it did contain, and that was a grand piano. At the moment of their entrance the instrument stood wide open, and at the keyboard was seated a young lady.
"I am Miss Vesey," she observed, without troubling herself to rise as the visitors entered.
Miss Macleod bowed. She appeared about to make some remark, possibly with reference to the apostle spoons; but before she could speak, Miss Vesey went on,--
"That is my father you saw outside--the Rev. George Vesey. He's a dipsomaniac."
Miss Macleod started, which, under the circumstances, was not unnatural. Her nephew stared with all his eyes and spectacles. Miss Vesey was a fine young woman, about nineteen years of age. The most prominent feature in her really intellectual countenance was a pair of large and radiant black eyes.