h her sprightly grace and
golden hair, was only masquerading as a woman--she was in reality a
daffodil.

Unlike so many of the fair sex who go in for gardening, my aunts were
essentially dainty. Their figures were shapely and elegant, their
hands slim and soft. I never saw them working without gloves, and I
have good reason to believe they anointed their fingers every night
with a special preparation to keep them smooth and white. They were
not--decidedly not--"brainy," neither were they accomplished, never
having made any special study of the higher arts; but they evinced
nevertheless the keenest appreciation of painting, music, and
literature. Their library--a large one--boasted a delightful
harbourage of such writers as Jane Austen, Miss Mitford, and Maria
Edgeworth. And in their drawing-room, on the walls of which art was
represented by the old as well as modern masters, might be seen and
sometimes heard--for the Misses Harbordeens often entertained--a
well-tuned Broadwood, and a Bucksen harpsichord. I will describe this
old-world abode, not as I first saw it, for when I first visited my
aunts Amelia and Deborah, I was only one year old, but as I first
remember it--a house with the glamour of a many-gabled roof and
diamond window-panes.

The house stood by the side of the turnpike road--that broad, white,
interminable road, originating from goodness knows where in the north,
and passing through Ayr--the nearest town of any importance--to
goodness knows where in the south. A shady avenue, entered by a wooden
swing gate bearing the superscription "Hennersley" in neat, white
letters, led by a circuitous route to it, and not a vestige of it
could be seen from the road. In front of it stretched a spacious lawn,
flanked on either side and at the farthest extremity by a thick growth
of chestnuts, beeches, poplars, and evergreens.

The house itself was curiously built. It consisted of two storeys, and
formed a main building and one wing, which gave it a peculiarly
lop-sided appearance that reminded me somewhat ludicrously of
Chanticleer, with a solitary, scant, and clipped appendage.

It was often on the tip of my tongue to ask my relatives the reason of
this singular disparity; whether it was the result of a mere whim on
the part of the architect, or whether it had been caused by some
catastrophe; but my curiosity was always held in check by a strange
feeling that my relatives would not like to be approached on the
s