Aunt Lizzie--otherwise Mrs Stroud--was an excellent person, and had "kept her brother's family together," as she expressed it, ever since their mother's death; but she was not invariably pleasant, and her eldest niece disliked being called Martha Jane much more than Florence disliked being scolded for her finery. When all the younger ones had such beautiful names--Maud Florence Nellie, Ethel Rosamond, and Sybil Eva Constance--it was hard upon her that she had been born before her mother's love of reading, and perhaps her undeveloped love of the beautiful things of life, had overcome the family traditions. "Martha" was bad enough, and she did not know that the children's use of "Matty" was a fashionable variation of it. But "Martha Jane!" She was not, however, saucy like Florence, so she only sighed a little and said: "I do my best, indeed, aunt; but won't you lay off your mantle and sit down comfortably? Father won't be in yet. He likes to be round, when so many friends come to visit the graves and put flowers, in case of mischief, and the children won't be back for near two hours." Mrs Stroud was a stout comfortable woman, not very unlike what her niece Florence might be after five and thirty more years in a workaday world had marked and subdued her beaming countenance. She was glad to sit down after the hot walk, take off her cloth mantle, which, though an eminently dignified and respectable garment, was rather a heavy one for a June day, and fan herself with her pocket-handkerchief, while she inquired into the well-being of her nieces and nephews. Martha Jane was of a different type--dark and slim, with pretty, rather dreamy grey eyes, and a pale refined face. She was a good girl, and tried to do her duty by her young brothers and sisters; but she had not very strong health or spirits, and in many ways she wished that her life was different from what fate had made it. "That there Florrie," said Mrs Stroud, "ain't the sort of girl to be allowed to _stravage_ about the roads by herself for two hours." "Why, aunt, she must go to her Bible class," said Martha meekly. "Well," said Mrs Stroud, "there's girls that aren't calculated for Bible classes, in my opinion. Does she come in punctual from her work on weekdays?" "Oh, yes, aunt, and it's supposed that George meets her. Not that he always does; but she has to look out for him. And Mrs Lee keeps her very strict at the shop. She don't have her hair flying about on weekdays, nor dress fine, and she's a good girl for her work and very civil, Mrs Lee says. You wouldn't know Florrie when she's behaving." "Pity she don't behave always then," said Mrs Stroud. "That's just the thing," said Martha, "I tell her, aunt, constant. I tell her to read the tales out of the library, and see what the young ladies are like that are written about in them. And she says a tale may be a tale, but she ain't in a book, and she don't want to be. Florrie's always got an answer ready."