“I am sure of it, my darling,” with even more solemnity, “but it will be better that I should take an apartment. It will rejoice your tender heart to know that by your gift you have helped me to secure one, and when I receive my allowance from Sir William I shall feel that I am independent once more. You must forgive me, my love; it is not that I do not appreciate your hospitality—yours and Walter’s—I do. But I feel that it would sadden all my dear ones who are gone, if they knew that I was alone in the world, without a home of my own. That is why I went to Sir William Rammage, Florence; and though he said little, I feel sure that he saw the matter in a proper light, and felt as I do about it.” “What did he say?” “He said he would think it over, and when he had made up his mind he would write to me. My love, would you permit me to ring the bell?” “Yes, of course. Why do you always ask me? Don’t you feel at home here, dear Aunt Anne?” Florence asked, thinking that Sir William’s answer had, after all, committed him to little. “I hope I shall never so far forget myself as not to treat you with the courtesy that you have a right to expect, my darling. I will never take advantage of our relationship.—Jane,” she said, with quite another manner, and in a cold and slightly haughty tone, to the servant who had entered, “would you have the goodness to divest me of my cloak? and if your mistress gives you permission, perhaps you would carry it up to my room?” “Yes, ma’am,” said Jane, respectfully, but without much willingness in her manner. The servants had learnt to resent the tone in which Mrs. Baines usually spoke to them. “She treats us like dirt,” the housemaid explained to the cook; “and if were made of dirt, I should like to know what she’s made of? She give me a shilling the other day, and another time a new apron done up in a box from the draper’s; but I don’t care about her for all her presents. I know she always sees every speck of dust that others would be blind to; it’s in her wink that she does.” “And now that you have told me all your news, I want you to listen to mine,” Florence said. Then she gave an account of Mr. Fisher’s visit, and of the letting of the house for a couple of months. “So, Aunt Anne,” she continued triumphantly, “I want you to be very, very good, and to go with the children and two of the servants to the cottage at Witley to-morrow, and to be the mistress of the great establishment, if you will, and mother to the children till I come; that proves how bad I think your influence is for them, doesn’t it, you unkind old dear?”—and she stooped and kissed Mrs. Baines. Aunt Anne was delighted, and consented at once.