w aunt she would do her best to give satisfaction in
the new situation. And Alice thought of the Murdstone aunt belonging to
Daisy and Denny, and how awful it would have been if Albert's uncle had
married _her_. And she decided, she told me afterwards, that we might
think ourselves jolly lucky it was no worse.

Then the lady led Oswald aside, pretending to show him the parrot, which
he had explored thoroughly before, and told him she was not like some
people in books. When she was married she would never try to separate
her husband from his bachelor friends, she only wanted them to be her
friends as well.

Then there was tea, and thus all ended in amicableness, and the reverend
and friendly drove us home in a wagonette. But for Martha we shouldn't
have had tea, or explanations, or lift, or anything. So we honored her,
and did not mind her being so heavy and walking up and down constantly
on our laps as we drove home.

* * * * *

And that is all the story of the long-lost grandmother and Albert's
uncle. I am afraid it is rather dull, but it was very important (to
him), so I felt it ought to be narrated. Stories about lovers and
getting married are generally slow. I like a love-story where the hero
parts with the girl at the garden-gate in the gloaming and goes off and
has adventures, and you don't see her any more till he comes home to
marry her at the end of the book. And I suppose people have to marry.
Albert's uncle is awfully old--more than thirty, and the lady is
advanced in years--twenty-six next Christmas. They are to be married
then. The girls are to be bridesmaids in white frocks with fur. This
quite consoles them. If Oswald repines sometimes, he hides it. What's
the use? We all have to meet our fell destiny, and Albert's uncle is not
extirpated from this awful law.

Now the finding of the long-lost was the very last thing we did for the
sake of its being a noble act, so that is the end of the Wouldbegoods,
and there are no more chapters after this. But Oswald hates books that
finish up without telling you the things you might want to know about
the people in the book. So here goes. We went home to the beautiful
Blackheath house. It seemed very stately and mansion-like after the Moat
House, and every one was most frightfully pleased to see us.

Mrs. Pettigrew _cried_ when we went away. I never was so astonished in
my life. She made each of the girls a fat red pincushion like