and then to discover the occupants sitting stiffly in opposite corners,
deeply engaged in book or needlework. But, as I have said, with regard
to some households, such precautions might be needless.

Personally, I fear, I exercised little or no controlling influence upon
my parents in this respect, my intrusions coming soon to be greeted
with: "Oh, it's only Spud," in a tone of relief, accompanied generally
by the sofa cushion; but of my aunt they stood more in awe. Not that she
ever said anything, and, indeed, to do her justice, in her efforts to
spare their feelings she erred, if at all, on the side of excess.
Never did she move a footstep about the house except to the music of
a sustained and penetrating cough. As my father once remarked,
ungratefully, I must confess, the volume of bark produced by my aunt in
a single day would have done credit to the dying efforts of a hospital
load of consumptives; to a robust and perfectly healthy lady the cost in
nervous force must have been prodigious. Also, that no fear should live
with them that her eyes had seen aught not intended for them, she would
invariably enter backwards any room in which they might be, closing the
door loudly and with difficulty before turning round: and through dark
passages she would walk singing. No woman alive could have done more;
yet--such is human nature!--neither my father nor my mother was grateful
to her, so far as I could judge.

Indeed, strange as it may appear, the more sympathetic towards them she
showed herself, the more irritated against her did they become.

"I believe, Fanny, you hate seeing Luke and me happy together," said my
mother one day, coming up from the kitchen to find my aunt preparing
for entry into the drawing-room by dropping teaspoons at five-second
intervals outside the door: "Don't make yourself so ridiculous." My
mother spoke really quite unkindly.

"Hate it!" replied my aunt. "Why should I? Why shouldn't a pair of
turtle doves bill and coo, when their united age is only a little over
seventy, the pretty dears?" The mildness of my aunt's answers often
surprised me.

As for my father, he grew positively vindictive. I remember the occasion
well. It was the first, though not the last time I knew him lose his
temper. What brought up the subject I forget, but my father stopped
suddenly; we were walking by the canal bank.

"Your aunt"--my father may not have intended it, but his tone and manner
when speaking of my a