as entirely her own.

It was Mr. Britling's habit, a habit he had set himself to acquire after
much irritating experience, to disregard Aunt Wilshire. She was not,
strictly speaking, his aunt; she was one of those distant cousins we
find already woven into our lives when we attain to years of
responsibility. She had been a presence in his father's household when
Mr. Britling was a boy. Then she had been called "Jane," or "Cousin
Jane," or "Your cousin Wilshire." It had been a kindly freak of Mr.
Britling's to promote her to Aunty rank.

She eked out a small inheritance by staying with relatives. Mr.
Britling's earlier memories presented her as a slender young woman of
thirty, with a nose upon which small boys were forbidden to comment. Yet
she commented upon it herself, and called his attention to its marked
resemblance to that of the great Duke of Wellington. "He was, I am
told," said Cousin Wilshire to the attentive youth, "a great friend of
your great-grandmother's. At any rate, they were contemporaries. Since
then this nose has been in the family. He would have been the last to
draw a veil over it, but other times, other manners. 'Publish,' he said,
'and be damned.'"

She had a knack of exasperating Mr. Britling's father, a knack which to
a less marked degree she also possessed in relation to the son. But Mr.
Britling senior never acquired the art of disregarding her. Her
method--if one may call the natural expression of a personality a
method--was an invincibly superior knowledge, a firm and ill-concealed
belief that all statements made in her hearing were wrong and most of
them absurd, and a manner calm, assured, restrained. She may have been
born with it; it is on record that at the age of ten she was pronounced
a singularly trying child. She may have been born with the air of
thinking the doctor a muff and knowing how to manage all this business
better. Mr. Britling had known her only in her ripeness. As a boy, he
had enjoyed her confidences--about other people and the general neglect
of her advice. He grew up rather to like her--most people rather liked
her--and to attach a certain importance to her unattainable approval.
She was sometimes kind, she was frequently absurd....

With very little children she was quite wise and Jolly....

So she circulated about a number of houses which at any rate always
welcomed her coming. In the opening days of each visit she performed
marvels of tact, and set a watch upon