[Cover Illustration] AUNT ANNE. _By Mrs. W. K. Clifford_, _Author of “Mrs. Keith’s Crime,” etc._ “As less the olden glow abides, And less the chillier heart aspires, With driftwood beached in past spring-tides We light our sullen fires.” JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. London: Richard Bentley & Son, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1892. (All rights reserved.) [Illustration] AUNT ANNE. CHAPTER I. Portsea Place, Connaught Square, is composed of very small houses, most of which are let out in apartments. It was to one of these that Mrs. Baines drove on her arrival in town. Her two canvas-covered boxes, carefully corded, were on the top of the cab, her many small packages piled up inside. Mr. Wimple was not with her. He had left her at Waterloo, but it had been arranged that he was to see her later on in Portsea Place, and that if she failed to take rooms there, she was to leave a message where she was to be found. “Well, Mrs. Hooper,” she said to the landlady, smilingly, but with the condescending air of a patroness, “you see I have not forgotten you, and if your rooms are still at liberty I should like to inspect them again.” “Yes, ma’am, certainly they are at liberty,” said Mrs. Hooper, who felt convinced that, in spite of the shabby cloak with the clasp, the spare old lady must be some grand personage in disguise. “I shall be only too glad if they please you.” Mrs. Baines inspected them carefully, two little rooms on the drawing-room floor, a bedroom and a sitting-room. She looked at the pictures, she winked at herself in the looking-glass, she gently shook the side-table to see if it was rickety. She tried the springs of the easy-chair, and the softness of the sofa cushions. She asked if the chimney had been properly swept, and whether there was a draught from the windows. “I think a guinea a week is an ample rent, Mrs. Hooper, considering that it is not the season,” she said. “However, I will take the rooms for a week.” “I don’t usually let them for so short a time,” the landlady began meekly. “I might not require them for longer,” answered Mrs. Baines distantly, “but I can make them suit my purpose for a week.” “Very well, ma’am,” and Mrs. Hooper gave way, overawed by Aunt Anne’s unflinching manner. “Would you like a fire lighted?” “Certainly, and at once; but first will you be good enough to have the luggage carried in? And tell the cabman to wait; he can drive me to Portman Square. There will be a gentleman here to dinner to-night.”