cheeks, and then in her drab-apparelled person. Her whole aspect gave
the impression of a great self-importance, early realised and made part
of life, but kept in abeyance by the society of Aunt Mary and by a
religious conviction that others also had their place, a sort of back
seat, in the Divine consciousness.

It would not be fair to Aunt Aggie to omit to mention, especially as she
continually made veiled allusions to the subject herself, that she also
had known the tender passion. There had been an entanglement in her
youth with a High Church archdeacon. But we all know how indefinite, how
inconclusive, how meagre in practical results archidiaconal conferences
are apt to be! After one of them it was discovered that the entanglement
was all on Aunt Aggie's side. The archdeacon remained unenmeshed. Under
severe pressure from Lady Blore, then an indomitable bride of forty,
flushed by recent victory, he even went so far as to say that his only
bride was the Church. It was after this disheartening statement that
Aunt Aggie found herself drawn towards an evangelical and purer form of
religion. The Archdeacon subsequently married, or rather became guilty
of ecclesiastical bigamy. But Aunt Aggie throughout life retained
pessimistic views respecting the celibacy of the clergy.

* * * * *

Aunt Mary bestowed a strong businesslike peck, emphasized by contact
with the point of a stone-cold nose, on Magdalen's cheek. Aunt Aggie
greeted her niece with small inarticulate cluckings of affection. Have
you ever kissed a tepid poached egg? Then you know what it is to salute
Aunt Aggie's cheek.

"Where are Fay and Bessie?" enquired Aunt Mary instantly. When the aunts
announced their coming, which was invariably at an hour's notice, they
always expected to find the whole family, including Colonel Bellairs,
waiting indoors to receive them. This expectation was never realised,
but the annoyance that invariably followed had retained through many
years the dew of its youth.

"Bessie and Fay are out. I am expecting them back every moment."

"They will probably be later than usual to-day," said Aunt Mary grimly,
with the half-conscious intuition of those whom others avoid. Did she
know that with the exception of Sir John, whose vanity had led him to
take refuge in a _cul-de-sac_, her fellow creatures rushed out by back
doors, threw themselves out of windows, hid behind haystacks, had
letters to write, we