My uncle watched his niece narrowly. He evidently wanted her good opinion for his son-in-law, and smiled with ghastly approval every time the young man spoke. I caught Curling regarding her with great admiration, and even awe; which put me into the best possible temper with him, so pleased was I that he should see what a splendid substitute fortune had provided me with in the room of the young lady he had married. The trying moment presently came, when my aunt stepped out of the house, followed by Conny. Theresa and I fell back with the instinctive horror of people of sensibility who apprehend a shock. However, nothing very disagreeable happened. There was something, indeed, unpleasantly chilling in the hard smile with which my aunt gave Curling her hand and in the hasty manner with which she withdrew it; but the effect, to us lookers-on at least, was somewhat qualified by the broad, nervous smile with which my uncle superintended the greeting. As for Curling, his politeness was cringing. He smiled if his mother-in-law turned her head, listened with painful eagerness to be agreeable if she opened her mouth, agreed with her before he well knew what she had said, and in every respect showed himself thoroughly afraid of her. “I don’t think he is going the right way to work to make her respect him,” I whispered to Theresa. “Poor fellow!” she answered. “I wonder Conny had the heart to bring him here. I should be sorry to subject my husband to such treatment.” “What do you think of him?” “He seems gentlemanly enough.” “Could you have run off with him, Theresa?” “As soon with O’Twist!” I had made up my mind to have Conny given me to take into dinner; but to my great relief and pleasure, she took her papa’s arm, Curling conducted Mrs. Hargrave, and I was left to Theresa. Curling and his mother-in-law walked in front of us from the drawing-room, and I had great difficulty to retrain myself from bursting into a fit of laughter on catching sight of my aunt’s face, and watching the contemptuous air with which she waddled alongside her new connexion. Theresa begged me not to speak to her, lest she should lose her self-control. The sight was, indeed, ludicrous enough; and one of the servants, at all events, saw the joke, for she turned rapidly away as my aunt entered the dining-room and emitted a laugh over the sideboard, which made my uncle look smartly round under the impression, I believe, that a cork had flown.