appointments, and pointed out when and how work should be
done--told how he managed in his business, and how we should manage in
ours. I was almost distraught with annoyance; and, kind as my aunt had
been, I wished for the time of her departure silently, but as
earnestly as did my servants. Heaven pardon me for my inhospitality
and ingratitude.

"Now, Lina," said my father, the morning she left, "don't forget the
woman you were speaking of. Enna needs some experienced person to keep
things in order. We shall have to break up housekeeping if affairs go
on in this disordered state. I do not know how we have stood it thus
long."

I opened my eyes but said not a word. Three months before and my
father had been the happiest, free-from-care man in the city; now the
little insight he had gained into domestic affairs--the peep behind
the curtain given him by my mistaken maiden aunt, had served to
embitter his existence, surrounding his path with those nettles of
life, household trifles, vulgar cares and petty annoyances. I almost
echoed Biddy's ejaculation as the carriage drove from the door with my
aunt and her numberless boxes, each one arranged on a new, orderly,
time-saving plan.

"Sure, and it's glad I am, that the ould craythur is fairly off--for
divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her
time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be,
darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby
notions."

Ike shouted with glee, and turned somersets all the way through the
hall into the back entry, regardless of all I could say; and the
merriment and light heartedness that pervaded the whole house was most
cheering. Biddy stamped and put her work in a greater confusion than
ever; and Ike dusted the blinds from the top to the bottom in a
"wholesale way," as he called it, and cleaned the knives on the wrong
side of the Bath-brick to his heart's content. Every one, even the
dumb animals, seemed conscious of Aunt Lina's departure. My little pet
kitten, Norah, resumed her place by the side of the heater in the
library, starting once in a while in her dreams and springing up as
though she heard the rustle of Aunt Lina's gown, or the sharp, clear
notes of her voice--but coiled herself down with a consoling "pur," as
she saw only "little me" laughing at her fears--and my little darling
spaniel Flirt laid in my lap, nestled on the foot of my bed, and
romped all over the house