d Aunt Anne, "has been very good."

"And she's tired, I'm sure," continued the little lady, who must of
course be Aunt Elizabeth. "The journey was easy, dear. And you had no
change. They gave you footwarmers, I hope. It's been lovely weather.
I'm so glad to see you, dear. I've had no photograph of you since you
were a baby."

Aunt Elizabeth had a way, Maggie thought, of collecting a number of
little disconnected statements as though she were working out a sum and
hoped--but was not very certain--that she would achieve a successful
answer. "Add two and five and three and four ..." The statements that
she made were apparently worlds apart in interest and importance, but
she hoped with good fortune to flash upon the boards a fine result. She
was nervous, Maggie saw, and her thin shoulders were a little bent as
though she expected some one from behind to strike her suddenly in the
small of the back.

"She's afraid of something," thought Maggie.

Aunt Elizabeth had obviously not the strong character of her sister
Anne.

"Thank you," said Maggie, looking, for no reason at all, at Mr. Magnus,
"I slept in the train, so I'm not tired." She stopped then, because
there was nothing more to say. She felt that she ought to kiss her
aunt; she thought she saw in her aunt's small rather watery eyes an
appeal that she should do so. The distance, however, seemed infinite,
and Maggie had a strange feeling that her bending down would break some
spell, that the picture in the passage would fall with a ghostly
clatter, that Edward the parrot would scream and shriek, that the gas
would burst into a bubbling horror, that the big black cat would leap
upon her and tear her with its claws.

"Well, I'm not afraid," she thought. And, as though she were defying
the universe, she bent down and kissed her aunt. She fancied that this
act of hers produced a little sigh of relief. Every one seemed to
settle down. They all sat, and conversation was general.

Mr. Magnus had a rather melancholy, deprecating voice, but with some
touch of irony too, as though he were used to being called a fool by
his fellow-beings, but after all knew better than they did. He did not
sound at all conceited; only amused with a little gentle melancholy at
his own position.

"I'm glad to see you so well, Miss Cardinal," he said with an air of
rather old-fashioned courtesy. "I had been afraid that it might have
exhausted you. I only came to welcome you. I must return at