"I suppose you think it lovely, Edith. I have often wondered, for my own part, why your aunt should bury herself here. But come—jump out; there she is at the door. The King's Majesty would not draw her to the garden gate, I think."
Edith got out of the cab, feeling like a girl in a dream, and followed her father up the gravel walk, noting mechanically the gorgeous colouring of tulips and hyacinths that filled the flower-beds on either hand.
A tall, grey-haired lady, well advanced in life, came slowly forward, holding out a thin, cold hand, and saying in a frigid tone, "Well, brother, so we meet again after these ten years. I hope you are well, and have left your wife and family well also."
A Doubtful Welcome
"Quite well, thank you, Rachel, excepting Maria, who is never very well, you know," said the doctor heartily, taking the half-proffered hand in both his. "And how are you, after all this long time? You don't look a day older than when we parted."
"I am sorry I cannot return the compliment," remarked the lady, with a grim smile. "I suppose it is all the care and worry of your great family of children that have aged you so. And Maria was always such a poor, shiftless creature. I daresay, now, with all that your boys and girls cost you, you have two or three servants to keep, instead of making the girls work, and saving the wages and the endless waste that the best of servants make."
"We have but two," said the doctor, in a slightly irritated tone of voice. "My girls and their mother are ladies, Rachel, if they are poor. I can't let them do the rough work. For the rest, they have their hands pretty full, I can assure you. You have little idea, living here as you do, how much there is to be done for a family of nine children."
"No, I am thankful to say I have not. But you had better come in, and bring the girl with you."
With these ungracious words Aunt Rachel cast her eyes for the first time upon Edith, who had stood a silent and uncomfortable listener while her father and aunt were talking.
"Humph!" ejaculated Miss Harley, after looking her niece over from top to toe with a piercing, scrutinising gaze, that seemed to take in every detail of figure, face, and toilette, and to disapprove of all; "humph! The child looks healthy, and that is all I can say for her. But bring her in, Henry—Stimson and the boy can see to her box. I suppose you will stay yourself for to-night?"