and how grand the other!
Could there be a doubt which was nearer God?

A lump came up in my throat, which I had to swallow before I could tell
Hilary that I loved old ballads and such things better than what they
call classical music, much of which seems to me like running up and down
without any aim or tune to it--and she was giving me a tap with her fan,
and saying,--

"Oh, fie, Cousin Caroline! Don't tell the world your taste is so bad as
that!"

Suddenly a sound broke across it all, that sent everything vanishing
away, present and future, good and ill, and carried me off to the old
winter parlour at Brocklebank.

"Bless me, man! don't you know how to carry a basket?" said a voice,
which I felt as ready and as glad to welcome as if it had been that of
an angel. "Well, you Londoners have not much pith. We Cumberland folks
don't carry our baskets with the tips of our fingers--can't, very often;
they are a good heft."

"Madam," said Dobson at the door, looking more uncomfortable than I had
ever seen him, "here is a--a person--who--"

"Woman, man! I'm a woman, and not ashamed of it! Mrs Desborough,
Madam, I hope you are well."

What Grandmamma was going to do or say, I cannot tell. She sat looking
at her visitor from head to foot, as if she were some kind of curiosity.
I am afraid I spoilt the effect completely, for with a cry of "Aunt
Kezia!" I rushed to her and threw my arms round her neck, and got a
warmer hug than I expected my Aunt Kezia to have given me. Oh dear,
what a comfort it was to see her! She was what nobody else was in
Bloomsbury Square--something to lean on and cling to. And I did cling
to her: and if I went down in the esteem of all the big people round me,
I felt as if I did not care a straw about it, now that I had got my own
dear Aunt Kezia again.

"Here's one glad to see me, at any rate!" said my Aunt Kezia; and I
fancy her eyes were not quite dry.

"Here are two, Aunt Kezia," said Hatty, coming up.

"Mrs Kezia Courtenay, is it not?" said Grandmamma, so extra graciously
that I felt sure she was vexed. "I am extreme glad to see you, Madam.
Have you come from the North to-day? Hester, my dear, you will like to
take your aunt to your chamber. Caroline, you may go also, if you
desire it."

Thus benignantly dismissed, we carried off my Aunt Kezia as if she had
been a casket of jewels. And as to what the fine folks said behind our
backs, either of her or of us, I do not believ