A tangible proof of the promised change in our financial status was experienced by myself on my return to school in a more liberal allowance of pocket-money. As yet it was only a promised change, for the half-yearly dividend would not be declared until January, and would not be paid till a month later. What one might call “a reflected proof” came when we went over to spend Christmas with Uncle Obad at Chelsea. Yes, Aunt Lavinia had succumbed to her good fortune. The Christian Boarding House had been abandoned and a fine old house had been rented, standing nearly at the corner of Cheyne Row, looking out across the river to Battersea. On Christmas Eve my uncle’s carriage came to fetch us. That was a surprise in itself. It was his present to Aunt Lavinia, all brand new--a roomy brougham, with two gray horses, and a coachman in livery. From this it will be seen that he had not kept his bargain with himself, made that day at Richmond, to live only on his salary. A slight fall of snow was on the ground; across London we drove, the merriest little family in all that shopping crowd. We had scarcely pulled up against the pavement and had our first peep of the fine big house, when the front-door flew open, letting out a flood of light which rippled to the carriage like a golden carpet unrolled across white satin. There stood Uncle Obad, frock-coated and glorious, with Aunt Lavinia beside him, dressed all in lavender--not at all the prim, businesslike little woman, half widow, half hospital nurse, of my earliest recollection. She was as beaming and excited as a young girl, and greeted the Snow Lady by throwing her arms about her and whispering, “Oh, doesn’t it seem all too good to be true?” The Snow Lady kissed her gaily on both cheeks, saying, “True enough, my dear. At any rate, Obad’s carriage was very real.” How changed we were from the solemn polite personages who had considered it a point in our favor that we knew how to bottle our emotions. We laughed and rollicked, and made quite poor jokes seem brilliant by the sparkle with which we told or received them. And all this was done by money; in our case, merely by the promise of money! When a boy remembered what we all had been, it was a transformation which called for reflection. My uncle with his jolly rich-relative manner was the focus-point of our attentions. Aunt Lavinia and, in fact, we all felt flat whenever he went out of the room. She followed after him like a little dog, with dumb admiring eyes, waiting to be petted. She told the Snow Lady that she couldn’t blame herself enough and could never make it up to him, for having lived with him in the same house all those years without having discovered his goodness. Then, as ladies will, they kissed for the twentieth time and did a little glad crying together.