He seemed to know her thoughts, and answered them in an explanatory manner: “Anne won’t be long. She always dresses before we have dinner. Great nonsense, living as we do; but it’s no use my speaking. Do you make a long stay in Brighton, Mr. Hibbert?” “No, we go back to town to-night.” “A good thing,” he said, with another lumbering laugh; “Brighton is a horrible place to my mind, and the sooner one leaves it the better. That pier, with its band and set of idle people, with nothing else to do but to walk up and down;—well, it’s my opinion that railways have done a vast deal of mischief and mighty little good to make up for it. The same thing can be said of newspapers. What good do they do?” Walter felt that this sudden turn upon the Press was a little hard on him, but he looked up over his moustache with laughter in his eyes, and wondered what would come next. Florence was almost angry. Aunt Anne’s husband was very rude, she thought, and she determined to come to the rescue. “But you were reading a paper,” she said, and tried to see the name of one that Mr. Baines had thrown down beside his chair. “Oh, yes; I like to try and find out what mischief they are going to do next. If I had my way they should only be published monthly, if at all. All they do is to try and set people by the ears.” “But they tell us the news.” “Well, and what better are we for that? I don’t want to know that a man was hanged last week, and a prince will be married to-morrow; I only waste my time reading about them when I might be usefully employed minding my own business.” “Walter writes for a paper,” Florence said distantly, determined to find out if Mr. Baines was being rude on purpose. A little dull curiosity came into his eyes, as he looked up and asked— “Walter—who’s Walter?” “I am,” laughed the owner of the name; “but she needn’t have betrayed me.” Mr. Baines was in no way disconcerted. “Oh! you write for a paper, do you? Well, I am sorry for you; you might do something much better. Oh, here’s Anne; now we had better go and eat.” With the aid of a stick, he shuffled out of the chair, refusing Walter’s offered help. “I didn’t know you wrote for a paper, or I would have held my tongue,” he said, as a sort of apology. “No, thank you, I am all right once I am on my feet.” Florence and Walter were astonished when they looked at Aunt Anne. They hardly knew her again. The shabby black shawl had vanished, the dusty bonnet was replaced by a soft white cap; there was lace at her throat fastened by a little crinkly gold brooch that had a place for hair in the middle: her satin dress trailed an inch or two on the ground behind, and she had put a red carnation in her bosom almost coquettishly.