to the porter according to his own
judgment, and sweeping her into the carriage, returning as I was
picking up the odds and ends that had been shed on the way. "You have
had a considerable charge," said I, between amusement and dismay.

"Poor old thing, comfort her! She never saw a train before, and is
regularly overset."

He put me into the carriage, emptied his pockets of the cat and other
trifles, and vanished in the twilight, the old lady gaspingly calling
after him, and I soothing her by explaining that he always liked
walking home to stretch his legs, while she hoped I was sure, and that
it was not want of room. Truly a man of his size could not well have
been squeezed in with her paraphernalia, but I did my best to console
the old lady for the absence of her protector, and I began at last to
learn, as best I could from her bewildered and entangled speech, how he
had arrived, taken the whole management of her affairs, and insisted on
carrying her off; but her gratitude was strangely confused with her new
railway experiences and her anxieties about her parcels. I felt as if
I had drifted a little bit farther from old times, when we held our
heads rather fastidiously high above "odd people."

But old Mrs. Samuel Alison _was_ a lady, as even Lady Diana allowed;
but of a kind nearly extinct. She had only visited London and Bath
once, on her wedding tour, in the days of stage-coaches; there was
provincialism in her speech, and the little she had ever been taught
she had forgotten, and she was the most puzzle-headed woman I ever
encountered. I do not think she ever realised that it was at Harold's
own expense that her rent and other little accounts had been paid up,
nor that Eustace was maintaining her. She thought herself only on a
long visit, and trusted the assurances that Harold was settling
everything for ever. The L30 income which remained to her out of one
of L200 served for her pocket-money, and all else was provided for her,
without her precisely understanding how; nor did she seem equal to the
complications of her new home. She knew our history in a certain sort
of way, but she spoke of one of us to the other as "your brother," or
"your sister," and the late Mr. Sam always figured as "your poor papa."
We tried at first to correct her, but never got her farther than "your
poor uncle," and at last we all acquiesced except Eustace, who tried
explanations with greater perseverance than effect. Her excu