I sat down on the sofa, on the cushions covered with blue and red checks. The room was very hot, and I stared about uncomfortably. The old lady sat peering at nothing, in reverie. She was a hard-visaged, bosomless dame, clad in thick black cloth-like armour, and wearing an immense twisted gold brooch in the lace at her neck. We heard heavy, quick footsteps above. “Er’s commin’,” remarked the old lady, rousing from her apathy. The footsteps came downstairs—quickly, then cautiously round the bend. Meg appeared in the doorway. She started with surprise, saying: “Well, I ’eered sumbody, but I never thought it was you.” More colour still flamed into her glossy cheeks, and she smiled in her fresh, frank way. I think I have never seen a woman who had more physical charm; there was a voluptuous fascination in her every outline and movement; one never listened to the words that came from her lips, one watched the ripe motion of those red fruits. “Get ’em a drop o’ whiskey, Meg—you’ll ’a’e a drop?” I declined firmly, but did not escape. “Nay,” declared the old dame. “I s’ll ha’e none o’ thy no’s. Should ter like it ’ot?—Say th’ word, an’ tha’ ’as it.” I did not say the word. “Then gi’e ’im claret,” pronounced my hostess, “though it’s thin-bellied stuff ter go to ter bed on”—and claret it was. Meg went out again to see about closing. The grand-aunt sighed, and sighed again, for no perceptible reason but the whiskey. “It’s well you’ve come ter see me now,” she moaned, “for you’ll none ’a’e a chance next time you come’n;—No—I’m all gone but my cap——” She shook that geraniumed erection, and I wondered what sardonic fate left it behind. “An’ I’m forced ter say it, I s’ll be thankful to be gone,” she added, after a few sighs. This weariness of the flesh was touching. The cruel truth is, however, that the old lady clung to life like a louse to a pig’s back. Dying, she faintly, but emphatically declared herself, “a bit better—a bit better. I s’ll be up to-morrow.” “I should a gone before now,” she continued, “but for that blessed wench—I canna abear to think o’ leavin ’er—come drink up, my lad, drink up—nay, tha’ ’rt nobbut young yet, tha’ ’rt none topped up wi’ a thimbleful.” I took whiskey in preference to the acrid stuff. “Ay,” resumed the grand-aunt. “I canna go in peace till ’er’s settled—an’ ’er’s that tickle o’ choosin’. Th’ right sort ’asn’t th’ gumption ter ax’ er.” She sniffed, and turned scornfully to her glass. George grinned and looked conscious; as he swallowed a gulp of whiskey it crackled in his throat. The sound annoyed the old lady. “Tha’ might be scar’d at summat,” she said. “Tha’ niver ’ad six drops o’ spunk in thee.” She turned again with a sniff to her glass. He frowned with irritation, half filled his glass with liquor, and drank again. “I dare bet as tha’ niver kissed a wench in thy life—not proper”—and she tossed the last drops of her toddy down her skinny throat. Here Meg came along the passage.