With some incomprehensible notion of endowing her daughter with a celestial name Aunt Azraella's mother, the late Mrs. Brown, had christened her by a feminine form, of her own invention, of the name of the dread angel of death. Prue had once caustically suggested that it must have been because Mrs. Brown had foreseen "that she was going to turn out so deadly." There were a great many hard points about the Greys' life, but if any one of them was asked suddenly which was her greatest trial she would probably have answered unhesitatingly: "Living so near Aunt Azraella." The girls speculated privately on what she could have been in her youth to have made their mother's brother--the Uncle Horace whom they did not remember--marry her. She was one of those persons born with a sure conviction of their fitness and mission to set the world right. She oversaw the Greys' expenditures, commented unfavorably on their methods of economy, condemned severely almost all their pleasures as extravagant, was wholly intolerant of what she called "Sylvester Grey's shiftlessness," and was thoroughly convinced that she could bring up three girls far more strictly, and far better than her sister-in-law--and as to the first half of her proposition she was doubtless correct. Yet she was not an ill-intentioned woman--Rob said that was the worst of it, "because if she meant to be horrid you could bid her to go to"--and in her peculiar way she really admired and was fond of her late husband's sister. "I wonder what we've done now," said Rob, out of her past experience, and taking a rapid mental survey of events since her aunt had visited them, in a vain attempt to discover a peg on which she could hang blame. Mrs. Winslow appeared in the doorway before anyone could reply, revealing herself portly, with a nose that dented in at the tip sharply on each side above its widespread nostrils; the hair, eyes, and skin of this estimable lady were of a uniform drabness. "Good-afternoon," she said, entering. "Do you mean to say you aren't dressed? It's quarter--no, seventeen minutes after two! I make it a point to have myself and my house in perfect order every day at half-past one--Elvira understands that I demand that of her." "We can't get our girls to grasp the idea, aunt," said Rob, a remark her mother hastily covered by saying: "It was so pleasant here we loitered, yielding weakly to temptation, Azraella. Take this chair; there's a refreshing little breeze at this window." "What's that? Not a new cat! Now, Mary, how can you be so indulgent to these girls? Don't you know it costs something to feed animals? It may not be much, but you must often give them scraps you could use. It's just in those small leakages that your management fails--they keep you poor," said Aunt Azraella, sinking into the rocking-chair and removing her severe garden-hat.