“So you are Catherine West,” she said, after the first greeting, standing at a little distance that she might have a better view of the girl. She crossed to the window and drew up the blind before Catherine guessed her intention, and then continued her inspection. “Ah, not much like your mother, much more like what I was in my young days, but taller—it is the fashion to be tall now. Brown hair, blue eyes, fair complexion—but you are tired now. Yes, certainly you are a West, and that is satisfactory.” Aunt Cicely retired, and Catherine, shaking out her one evening gown, tried to make herself as presentable as possible. She feared the disapproval of this daintily-attired old lady, though the large pier-glass beneath the electric light flashed back to her a defiance of criticism. Then she found her way down to the immense drawing-room, like a conservatory in its wealth of glass, but somewhat inferior as regards warmth. She found out afterwards that her aunt had been ordered to St. John’s for her health, and had taken this large, new-fashioned house on the recommendation of a land agent without having seen it. Aunt Cicely was not such a terrible person after all. The fact was, she was agreeably surprised by this relation, whom she had summoned in tardy reparation for the injury she had done her nephew. Catherine’s father had chosen his wife from an inferior class, and his aunt had concluded that their daughter would be bourgeoise in the extreme. She had expected a short, dumpy girl, with big wrists and red hands, and saw instead a reflection, as it were, from the days of her own girlhood. A storm of grief and regret swept through the passionate heart that years of worldliness had been unable to entirely chill, and a resolution to make Catherine’s life as full and happy as her own had been empty and desolate filled her mind. But her manner was still distant and repellant; she could not easily throw aside her reserve or give play at once to the instincts of tenderness that had been distorted and diverted all her life.