That was the trouble. That was what made Harold (who at twenty-six was getting very like his father) hurl about a thousand miles over the garden wall the three apples Aunt Belle gave him as his share of the “very best apples from the Army and Navy Stores” which she brought down with other “goodies” for “the dear children”; and made, him grit his teeth after she had been in the house two days and cry, “Dash her! Poor relations; that’s how she treats us! I’m dashed if I’m a poor relation. I’m earning three pound ten a week at the Bank and I bet that appalling old Uncle Pyke didn’t get it or anything like it at my age!” Dear thing! “She meant it kindly.” That was the sweet apologetic excuse with which Rosalie’s mother followed the track of the storms Aunt Belle aroused and with which she sought to abate them. “She means it kindly. She means it kindly, dear.” It should be Aunt Belle’s epitaph. It ought to be graven upon that granite chunk in Brompton Cemetery. “She meant it kindly!” Issuing from the cab, Aunt Belle began by kissing Rosalie’s mother in a most astonishing series of kisses that whizzed from cheek to cheek so that it was a miracle to Rosalie that the two noses did not collide and her dear mother’s be knocked right off; and then most enthusiastically kissed all the family, applying to each the phrase with which she began on Harold “Well, well, so this is Harold!” (As if it were the most astounding and unexpected thing in the world that it was Harold.) “So this is Harold! Why, what a great big clever fellow, and what a comfort to your dear mother, I am sure!” And then gazed rapturously upon the house and said to Rosalie’s mother and to them all, “Well, well, what a very, very nice house, to be sure!” (“For you!”) She meant it kindly. Her manner of talking about herself and about her possessions was not that of bragging or of conscious superiority; it was, to the whole rectory family, and to all poorer than herself wherever she met them, that of one entertaining a party of children--of a kind lady telling stories to a group of round-eyed infants. When she first had tea on the afternoon of her arrival, she gazed upon the silver teapot as it was carried in and exclaimed, “Well, well, what a very, very handsome teapot! And hot-water jug to match! How very, very nice! Now how ever do you think I keep my water hot at tea? I have a very nice service all in silver gilt! It looks just like gold! And there’s a kettle to match with a spirit flame under it. The maid brings in the kettle boiling and we just light the spirit with a match and there it is gently boiling all the time!”