‘Few people,’ said Mr. Cattley, with subdued enthusiasm, ‘are so happy, Elly, as the boys and you.’ ‘My dear, it is quite true that I am not at all necessarily fond of you--(you _will_ make digressions from our subject). Get up this moment, and put aside your book till Joseph brings the lamp. Now, Elly, do what I tell you. You will ruin your eyes, and as for your complexion----’ ‘Mr. Cattley, you are always flattering Aunt Mary. She is a tyrant. She is as cruel as Nero. She does not care for us at all.’ ‘Hush--don’t blaspheme,’ Mr. Cattley said. ‘I wish I had been here,’ Mrs. Egerton resumed, making an end of the interruption, ‘to see the dear little woman herself before the end came. How sad it is that one cannot be away for two or three weeks without the chance of finding some familiar face gone before one comes back. No doubt she would have told me--indeed one would naturally have asked if there was anyone she would like to have sent for, or wanted to see. And the daughter did not arrive till she was gone? How sad it all is. I will go there to-morrow. Mr. Sandford, of course, knew I was away.’ ‘Everyone knows when you are away. It makes a difference in the very atmosphere,’ the curate said. Mrs. Egerton passed over this compliment with a slight wave of her hand; a smile would have been enough, had it been possible to see it. ‘I shall go to-morrow,’ she said. ‘I should have done so anyhow. And John--is anything settled with your brother about him? Is he going to begin his work? Poor boy; he will go with an aching heart. But he is so young.’ ‘Do you think people don’t feel when they are young, Aunt Mary? I think it is then they feel most.’ ‘Yes, Elly--and no: you feel, my dear, no one more keenly; but then you forget. Your heart will be breaking, and then there will come a bright day, a burst of sunshine, and it will spring up like a bird in spite of you. Thank God for it. That is the good of being young.’ ‘There seems to be some hesitation now about my brother,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘This aunt, if she is the aunt, seems to have interfered. I don’t know what is to come of it, except that the boy is evidently unhappy.’ ‘It is very clear,’ said Mrs. Egerton, half smiling, half serious, ‘that I have been too long away, and that I must try what I can make of it at once.’ ‘Oh, do! No one ever understands like you,’ said the curate, with a sigh of relief. And then the fireside talk floated off to other things.