“At last!” she exclaimed, in blended sarcasm and surprise, and it was several minutes before she recovered herself sufficiently to tell the negro to apprise Mr. Strangemore that she would be with him directly. But when she was left alone she dawdled over her tea and cakes, out of pure perversity. “Why should I hurry myself?” she thought, grimly. “_He_ has not made any haste in coming, certainly; and then, of course, Nina is with him. She went down to the wharf to meet him as she has done every day for years, poor little simpleton! I will give them a little while to bill and coo.” So Talbot Strangemore waited impatiently in the library almost half an hour before Nina’s grim chateleine appeared before him, stiff and stately in her black silk dress and point lace collar, her cap-border bristling with indignation at “the graceless young scamp,” whom, she said to herself, had perhaps only come home “to get a big slice of his wife’s money, and be off again!” She was rather surprised when she found him all alone. She said to herself that he had missed meeting Nina after all. He was not much disheartened at her chill, nonchalant greeting. He knew that his aunt despised men, and that she had never made much exception in his favor. “Have you seen Nina?” she asked him, brusquely, adding, maliciously: “Not that I suppose you are in any hurry to meet your wife.” Hardly as she judged him, she was unprepared for his agitated answer. He flung recklessly out of his chair, and began to stride madly up and down the floor, while he said in hoarse, strained accents: “You are quite right there, Aunt Drusilla. I wish indeed that I had never met her!” She gazed keenly at the dark, handsome face, and she saw that he was laboring under intense excitement that had been rising to fever heat while he waited for her entrance in the solitude of the dim and quiet library. Before she could answer, he flung himself down again into a chair in front of her, and, lifting his eyes to her face, said, almost pleadingly: “Tell me, Aunt Drusilla, do you not think with me that this marriage of mine with Nina Selwyn was a cruel and inexcusable outrage?” Miss Strangemore regarded him in surprise a moment, then she answered, with the perfect frankness which often made her a disagreeable companion to thin-skinned people: “Yes, indeed, I do consider it an outrage, Talbot, but I did not think you would have the grace to acknowledge it. I never _did_ like your mother, but I could not have believed that she would do such a wicked thing on her death-bed as to take advantage of that helpless child and bind her to you, so that you might get all her money.” A deep, angry red flashed through the rich, clear bronze of Talbot Strangemore’s face. He tore, furiously, though with a trembling hand, at the drooping ends of his long, silky moustache. “Aunt Drusilla, for shame’s sake, forbear! How dare you traduce the memory of my angel mother?” he cried, hotly.