ster to Lord Erymanth, and widow to an Irish gentleman, and
had settled in the next parish to us, with her children, on the death
of her husband.

Her little daughter, Viola, had been spending the day with me, and it
was a lovely spring evening, when we sat on the lawn, wondering whether
I should ever care for anything so much as for those long shadows from
the fir woods upon the sloping field, with the long grass rippling in
the wind, and the border of primroses round the edge of the wood.

We heard wheels and thought it was the carriage come for Viola, much
too soon, when out ran one of the maids, crying, "Oh! Miss Alison, he
is come. There's ever so many of them!"

I believe we caught hold of one another in our fright, and were almost
surprised when, outstripping lame old Richardson, as he announced "Mr.
Alison!" there came only three persons. They were the two tallest men
I had ever seen, and a little girl of eight years old. I found my hand
in a very large one, and with the words "Are you my aunt Lucy?" I was,
as it were, gathered up and kissed. The voice, somehow, carried a
comfortable feeling in the kindness of its power and depth; and though
it was a mouth bristly with yellow bristles, such as had never touched
me before, the honest friendly eyes gave me an indescribable feeling of
belonging to somebody, and of having ceased to be alone in the world.

"Here is Eustace," he said, "and little Dora," putting the child
forward as she backed against him, most unwilling to let me kiss her.
"And, I did not know I had another aunt."

"No," I said, starting between, for what would Lady Diana's feelings
have been if Viola had carried home an Australian kiss? "This is Miss
Tracy."

Viola's carriage was now actually coming, and as I went into the house
with her, she held me, whispering to me to come home at once with her,
but I told her I could not leave them in that way, and they were really
my nephews.

"You are not afraid?" she said.

"What do you think he could do to me?" I asked, laughing.

"He is so big," said Viola. "I never saw any one so big, but I think
he is like Coeur de Lion. Ah!" We both shrieked, for a most uncanny
monster was rearing up in front of us, hopping about the hall, as far
as was allowed by the chain that fastened it to the leg of a table.

"Mr. Alison brought it, ma'am," said Richardson, in a tone of disgust
and horror. "Will you have the carriage out, Miss Alison, and go down