ere be allowed the privilege of my sex, to enter on a slightly
discursive explanation as to who Aunt Deborah is and who I am, not
forgetting Cousin John, who is good-nature itself, and without whom I
cannot do the least bit. My earliest recollections of Aunt Deborah,
then, date from a period when I was a curly-headed little thing in a
white frock (not so very long ago, after all); and the first occasion
on which I can recollect her personality with any distinctness was on
a certain birthday, when poor grandfather said to me in his funny way,
"Kate, you romp, we must get you a rocking-horse."

Aunt Deborah lifted up her hands and eyes in holy horror and
deprecation. "A rocking-horse, Mr. Coventry," said she; "what an
injudicious selection! (Aunt Deborah likes to round her periods, as
the book-people say.) The child is a sad tomboy already, and if you
are going to teach her to ride, _I_ won't answer for the consequences
in after-life, when the habits of our youth have become the second
nature of our maturity."

Imagine such sentiments so expressed by a tall austere lady, with high
manly features, piercing dark eyes, a _front_ of jet-black hair coming
low down on a somewhat furrowed brow. Cousin John says all dark women
are inclined to be cross; and I own I think we _blondes_ have the best
of it as far as good temper is concerned. My aunt is not altered in
the slightest degree from what she was then. She dresses invariably in
gray silks of the most delicate shades and texture; carries spectacles
low down upon her nose, where they can be of no earthly use except for
inspection of the carpet; and wears lavender kid gloves at all hours
of the day and night--for Aunt Deborah is vain of her hand, and
preserves its whiteness as a mark of her birth and parentage. Most
families have a crotchet of some sort on which they plume themselves;
some will boast that their scions rejoice one and all in long noses;
others esteem the attenuated frames which they bequeath to their
descendants as the most precious of legacies; one would not part with
his family squint for the finest pair of eyes that ever adorned an
Andalusian maiden; another cherishes his hereditary gout as a
priceless patent of nobility; and even insanity is prized in
proportion to the tenacity with which it clings to a particular race.
So the Horsinghams never cease talking of the Horsingham hand; and if
I want to get anything out of Aunt Deborah, I have only to lend her a