Then Miss Stanbury went down, almost trembling as she went The matter to her was one of vital importance She was going to change the whole tenor of her life for the sake as she told herself of doing her duty by a relative whom she did not even know But we may fairly suppose that there had in truth been a feeling beyond that, which taught her to desire to have some one near her to whom she might not only do her duty as guardian, but whom she might also love.  She had tried this with her nephew; but her nephew had been too strong for her, too far from her, too unlike to herself.  When he came to see her he had smoked a short pipe, which had been shocking to her, and he had spoken of Reform, and Trades’ Unions, and meetings in the parks, as though they had not been Devil’s ordinances.  And he was very shy of going to church, utterly refusing to be taken there twice on the same Sunday.  And he had told his aunt that owing to a peculiar and unfortunate weakness in his constitution he could not listen to the reading of sermons.  And then she was almost certain that he had once kissed one of the maids!  She had found it impossible to manage him in any way; and when he positively declared himself as permanently devoted to the degrading iniquities of penny newspapers, she had thought it best to cast him off altogether.  Now, thus late in life, she was going to make another venture, to try an altogether new mode of living in order, as she said to herself, that she might be of some use to somebody but, no doubt, with a further unexpressed hope in her bosom, that the solitude of her life might be relieved by the companionship of some one whom she might love.  She had arrayed herself in a clean cap and her evening gown, and she went downstairs looking sternly, with a fully-developed idea that she must initiate her new duties by assuming a mastery at once.  But inwardly she trembled, and was intensely anxious as to the first appearance of her niece.  Of course there would be a little morsel of a bonnet.  She hated those vile patches dirty dirty flat daubs of millinery as she called them, but they had become too general for her to refuse admittance for such a thing within her doors.  But a chignon, a bandbox behind the noddle, she would not endure.  And then there were other details of feminine gear, which shall not be specified, as to which she was painfully anxious, almost forgetting in her anxiety that the dress of this young woman whom she was about to see must have ever been regulated by the closest possible economy.

The first thing she saw on entering the room was a dark straw hat, a straw hat with a strong penthouse flap to it, and her heart was immediately softened.

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I am glad to see you.’

Dorothy, who, on her part, was trembling also, whose position was one to justify most intense anxiety, murmured some reply.

‘Take off your hat,’ said the aunt, ‘and let me give you a kiss.’