At these words Mrs Null excused herself, and went into the house. Her mind was troubled as she wondered what the business was which had made this New York gentleman so extraordinarily desirous to find her cousin. Was it anything that would injure Junius? She looked back as she entered the door, but the object of her solicitude was sitting with a face so calm and composed that it showed very plainly he did not expect any communication which would be harmful to him. "It is a satisfaction," thought Mr Croft, "a very great satisfaction that I can enter upon the object of my visit knowing that my affairs and my actions have not been discussed by this gentleman and Mrs Null." CHAPTER XII. Old Mrs Keswick would willingly have followed the strange gentleman to the house in order to know the object of his visit, but as he had come to see Junius she refrained, for she knew her nephew would not like any appearance of curiosity on her part. Her reception of Junius had been very different indeed from that she had previously accorded him when she declined to be found under the same roof with him. Now he was here under very different auspices, and for him the very plumpest poultry was slain, and everything was done to make him comfortable and willing to stay and become acquainted with his cousin, Mrs Null. A match between these two young people was the present object of the old lady's existence, and she set about making it with as much determination and confidence as if there had been no such person as Mr Null. Of this individual she had the most contemptible opinion. She had never asked many questions about him, because, in her intercourse with her niece, she wished, as far as possible, to ignore him. Having mentally pictured him in various mean conditions of life, she had finally settled it in her mind that he was an agent for some patent fertilizer; a man of this kind being a very obnoxious person to her. This avocation, however, constituted in the old lady's mind no excusable reason for his protracted absence; and if ever a wife was deserted, she believed that her niece Annie was such a wife. "If he should stay away much longer," she said to herself, "we shall have no more trouble in getting a divorce than to have his funeral sermon preached. And if there is any talk of his coming here, or of her going to him, I'll put my foot down on that sort of thing, if I've a foot left to do it with."