orries on your shoulders I have on mine! Cook's in one of
her tempers to-day, just because I was anxious for things to go without
a hitch, for Auntie. There's a piece of salmon, at half-a-crown a
pound, bought because Auntie would think just nothing of the price, and
is all the year round _accustomed_ to salmon; cook is certain to send
it in bleeding or to boil it to a rag. You, at your office all day
long, with nothing to think about, and when you come home everything
running on oiled wheels----"

"Oh, I've heard all that before. My life is all perfect joy, according
to you," Augustus said. And in such inspiring intercourse the Mellishes
passed the few minutes of their _tete-a-tete_.

In the drawing-room, Auntie awaited them: a large, matronly-looking
spinster, with a heavy face and frame, a non-intelligential gaze from
dull brown eyes. Not a promising visitor, from a social point of view.
She was expensively attired, her garments rustling richly when she
moved. Her dark hair was fashionably piled on the top of her head.

She sat in a chair farthest from the window which she regarded
distrustfully, it being slightly open. In the railway carriage coming
down she had felt sure there was a draught, and now her neck was a
little stiff.

She thought slightingly of Grace's drawing-room; indeed, the whole
establishment wore a paltry air, to her thinking, who had a
predilection for the ornately massive in style. But if Grace had been
foolish enough to marry a lawyer, in a town already too full of
lawyers, and he young, and with his way to make, what could she expect?
Alfred's daughter should surely have done better than that, Auntie said
to herself.

Still, later on, she was bound to admit that the lawyer and his wife
did their best to make her comfortable, and showed her every attention.
Augustus, or Gussie, as Grace instructed her to call him, seemed an
agreeable person, although no one could consider him a good-looking
one--not half good-looking enough for Grace, who had been considered a
beauty. So black he was about the shaven portion of his face, his
close-cropped hair, and great eyes, so white everywhere else. Auntie,
who associated health with a brick-red complexion like her own, decided
that he could not be a strong man. She spoke to her niece about him
after dinner.

"He's chalk-white," she said.

Grace was not at all alarmed for her husband's health. "He's always
like that," she said. "He's never had a day'