"My goodness! Come to-day! And I with no mourning about me, to speak of. Well, let her come in." I knew my Aunt Selina again in a moment. She had stayed with us in Devonshire for three months two years before, when she was nineteen. The same lovely face, with its laughing blue eyes, and its shining golden hair. She wore an embroidered clear-muslin white dress, with low body and sleeves, and a few black ribbons; jet bracelets, and a long jet chain. "You darling child! But what made you come in this strange way, without notice?" "Mr. Sterling said he wrote word to you, Selina, that I should be here on Thursday. You ought to have had the letter yesterday." "Well, so he did write; but I thought—how stupid I must have been!" she interrupted, with a sudden laugh. "I declare I took it to mean next Thursday. But you are all the more welcome, dear. You have grown prettier, Anne, with those deep eyes of yours." I stood before her very gravely. I had _dreaded_ the meeting, believing it would be one of sobs and lamentation for my mother: not taking into account how careless and light-headed Selina was. I had called her "Selina," since, a little girl of four, I had gone on a visit to Keppe-Carew. Taking off my bonnet, she kissed me several times, and then held me before her by my hands as she sat on the sofa. Miss Delves went out and closed the door. "They are not home from shooting yet, Anne, so we can have a little talk to ourselves. When they go to the far covers, there's no knowing when they'll be in: two nights ago they kept me waiting dinner until eight o'clock." "Who did, Aunt Selina?" "Mr. Barley, and the rest," she answered, carelessly. "Anne, how very strange it was that your mamma should have died so quickly at the last! It was only two weeks before her death that she wrote to tell me she was ill." "She had been ill longer than that, Aunt Selina——" "Call me Selina, child." "But she did not tell any one until she knew there was danger. She did not tell me." "It was a renewal of that old complaint she had in India—that inward complaint." I turned my head and my wet eyes from her. "They told me it was her heart, Selina." "Yes; in a measure; that had something to do with it. It must have been a sad parting, Anne. Why, child, you are sobbing!" "Please don't talk of it!" "But I must talk of it: I like to have my curiosity gratified," she said, in her quick way. "Did the doctors say from the first that there was no hope?" "Mamma knew there was no hope when she wrote to you. She had told me so the day before." "I wonder she told you at all." "Oh, Selina! that fortnight was too short for the leave-taking; for all she had to say to me. It will be years, perhaps, before we meet again." "Meet again! Meet where?" "In Heaven!" "You are a strange child!" exclaimed Selina, looking at me very steadfastly. "Ursula has infected you, I see, with her serious notions. I used to tell her there was time enough for it years hence."