Dresden. Oh, that three
hours and a half! The boys and Herbert would have been content to sit
with their shoulders hutched up, staring at their boots, going every
quarter of an hour to the front-door to see if it were raining as hard
there as it was out of the salon window, and Evelyn only wanted to be
left in silence with her headache. But Henrietta would tease the boys.
Whatever they did do, or whatever they did not do, seemed an occasion
for criticism. Evelyn, to divert attention, burst into long
reminiscences of the days at Willstead. Henrietta combated each
statement with a kind of sneer, as though whatever Evelyn said was bound
to be worthless. Evelyn saw Herbert, who always treated her as if she
were a wonderful queen, casting black looks at Henrietta. At last his
anger came out:

"I don't know why it seems impossible for you to talk to Evelyn with
ordinary civility, Henrietta."

"My dearest boy," said Evelyn, going and patting Herbert's shoulder,
"Etty and I don't care about ordinary civility. We love having our
little spars together. Sisters don't bother to be as polite as men are
to one another; life would be much too much of a burden!"

She gave Henrietta's hand a squeeze, as she went back to her seat, but
after this Henrietta would hardly talk at all, and the reminiscences
became a monologue from Evelyn.

At last, at long last, the train came, and Henrietta forgot her
disappointment in sleep. The happy day she had looked forward to, and
planned, and paid for, was over.

Louie and her Colonel did not thrive better as the years went on. Money
never seemed able to stay with them. Henrietta helped them long after
everyone else had become tired of them. She did not expect gratitude,
nor did she get it. In spite of her dependence, Louie managed to convey
the impression of Henrietta's inferiority, and the children spoke of her
as a butt.

"Oh, it's Aunt Etta's year; it really is rather a fag to think we shall
have her for three weeks. Ethel, it's your turn to take her in tow; I
had her all last time."

"Poor Etta!" said Minna; "she is such an interminable talker, it does
worry Arthur so. She means very well; we all know that."

Minna's children were very much of the twentieth century, and were not
going to bear with a dull old maid, merely because she was their aunt
and had been kind to them. As one of them expressed it, "Never put
yourself out for a relation, however distant. That's an axiom."

Little