‘Oh, Maude! Then they did not say anything about what we hoped?’ ‘What, the mater’s offering for you to come and live with us, darling? Oh no; and I’s afraid it is of no use to ask her, for she said of herself, that she knew Mr. Mohun had sisters, and--’ ‘And what? Tell me, Maude. You must!’ ‘Well, then, you know you made me, and I think it is a shame. She said she was glad she wasn’t one of them, for you were such a peculiar child.’ ‘Dear me, Maude, you needn’t mind telling me that! I’m sure I don’t want to be like everybody else.’ ‘And are you going to one of your aunts?’ ‘Yes, to Aunt Lilias. Oh, Maude, he would not hear a word against it, and I know it will be so horrid! Aunts are always nasty!’ ‘Kate is very fond of her aunt,’ said Maude, who did not happen to have any personal experiences to oppose to this sweeping assertion. ‘Oh, I don’t mean proper aunts, but aunts that have orphans left to them.’ ‘But you are not an orphan, darling.’ ‘I dare say I shall be. ‘Tis a horrible climate, and there are no end of cannibals there, so that he would not take me out for anything,--and sharks, and volcanoes, and hurricanes.’ ‘I don’t think they eat people there now.’ ‘It’s bad enough if they don’t! And you know those aunts begin pretty well, while they are in fear of the father, but then they get worse.’ ‘There was Ada Morton,’ said Maude, in a tone of conviction, ‘and Anna Ross.’ ‘Oh yes, and another book, ‘Rose Turquand.’ It was a grown-up book, that I read once--long ago,’ said Dolores, who had in her mother’s time been allowed a pretty free range of ‘book-box.’ “And there’s ‘Under the Shield,’ but that was a boy.” ‘There are lots and lots,’ said Dolores. ‘They are ever so much worse than the stepmothers! Not that there is any fear of that!’ she added quickly. ‘But isn’t this Aunt Lilias nice? It’s a pretty name. Which is she? You have one aunt a Lady Something, haven’t you?’ ‘Yes, it is this one, Lady Merrifield. Her husband is a general, Sir Jasper Merrifield, and he is gone out to command in some place in India; but she cannot stand the climate, and is living at home at a place called Silverfold, with a whole lot of children. I think two are gone out with their father, but there are a great many more.’ ‘Don’t you know them at all?’ ‘No, and don’t want to! I think my aunts were unkind to mother!’ ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Maude. ‘I am sure of it. They were horrid, stuck-up, fine ladies, and looked down on her, though she was ever so much nicer, and cleverer, and more intellectual than they; and she looked down on them.’ ‘Are you sure?’ asked Maude, to whom it was as good as a story.