her.
If she did not spare him her tongue-lashings, it was nevertheless
expected in the family that she would leave him something handsome in
her will.

Mrs. Ochiltree had shared in the general rejoicing upon the advent of
the Carteret baby. She had been one of his godmothers, and had hinted at
certain intentions held by her concerning him. During Mammy Jane's
administration she had tried the old nurse's patience more or less by
her dictatorial interference. Since her partial confinement to the
house, she had gone, when her health and the weather would permit, to
see the child, and at other times had insisted that it be sent to her in
charge of the nurse at least every other day.

Mrs. Ochiltree's faculties had shared insensibly in the decline of her
health. This weakness manifested itself by fits of absent-mindedness, in
which she would seemingly lose connection with the present, and live
over again, in imagination, the earlier years of her life. She had
buried two husbands, had tried in vain to secure a third, and had never
borne any children. Long ago she had petrified into a character which
nothing under heaven could change, and which, if death is to take us as
it finds us, and the future life to keep us as it takes us, promised
anything but eternal felicity to those with whom she might associate
after this life. Tom Delamere had been heard to say, profanely, that if
his Aunt Polly went to heaven, he would let his mansion in the skies on
a long lease, at a low figure.

When the carriage drove up with Mrs. Carteret, her aunt was seated on
the little front piazza, with her wrinkled hands folded in her lap,
dozing the afternoon away in fitful slumber.

"Tie the horse, William," said Mrs. Carteret, "and then go in and wake
Aunt Polly, and tell her I want her to come and drive with me."

Mrs. Ochiltree had not observed her niece's approach, nor did she look
up when William drew near. Her eyes were closed, and she would let her
head sink slowly forward, recovering it now and then with a spasmodic
jerk.

"Colonel Ochiltree," she muttered, "was shot at the battle of Culpepper
Court House, and left me a widow for the second time. But I would not
have married any man on earth after him."

"Mis' Ochiltree!" cried William, raising his voice, "oh, Mis'
Ochiltree!"

"If I had found a man,--a real man,--I might have married again. I did
not care for weaklings. I could have married John Delamere if I had
wanted him. But p