re you?' said my mother, in a tone of that soft voice
whose meaning I knew so well.

My thoughts were continually upon Winifred, now that I was alone in
the familiar spots. I had never seen her nor heard from her since we
parted as children. She had only known me as a cripple. What would
she think of me now? Did she ever think of me? She had not answered
my childish letter, and this had caused me much sorrow and
perplexity.

We did not go into Wales after all. But the result of this
conversation took a shape that amazed me. I was sent to stay with my
Aunt Prue in London in order that I might attend one of the Schools
of Art. Yes, my mother thought it was better for me even to run the
risk of becoming bohemianised like Cyril Aylwin, than to brood over
Winnie or the scenes that were associated with our happy childhood.

In London I was an absolute stranger. We had no town house. On the
few occasions when the family had gone to London, it was to stay in
Belgrave Square with my Aunt Prue, who was an unmarried sister of my
mother's.

'Since the death of the Prince Consort, to go no further back,' she
used to say, 'a dreadful change has come over the tone of society;
the love of bohemianism, the desire to take up any kind of people, if
they are amusing, and still more if they are rich, is levelling
everything. However, I'm nobody now; I say nothing.'

What wonder that from my very childhood my aunt took a prejudice
against me, and predicted for me a career 'as deplorable as Cyril
Aylwin's,' and sympathised with my mother in her terror of the Gypsy
strain in my father's branch of the family?

Her tastes and instincts being intensely aristocratic, she suffered a
martyrdom from her ever present consciousness of this disgrace. She
had seen very much more of what is called Society than my mother had
ever an opportunity of seeing. It was not, however, aristocracy, but
Royalty that won the true worship of her soul.

Although she was immeasurably inferior to my mother in everything,
her influence over her was great, and it was always for ill. I
believe that even my mother's prejudice against Tom Wynne was largely
owing to my aunt, who disliked my relations towards Wynne simply
because he did not represent one of the great Wynne families. But the
remarkable thing was that, although my mother thus yielded to my
aunt's influence, she in her heart despised her sister's ignorance
and her narrowness of mind. She often took a humor