that he regarded me as personally responsible for her existence. This
used to weigh upon me. "Your aunt is the most cantankerous, the
most--" he broke off, and shook his fist towards the setting sun. "I
wish to God," said my father, "your aunt had a comfortable little
income of her own, with a freehold cottage in the country, by God I
do!" But the next moment, ashamed, I suppose, of his brutality: "Not
but what sometimes, of course, she can be very nice, you know," he
added; "don't tell your mother what I said just now."

Another who followed with sympathetic interest the domestic comedy was
Susan, our maid-of-all-work, the first of a long and varied series,
extending unto the advent of Amy, to whom the blessing of Heaven.
Susan was a stout and elderly female, liable to sudden fits of
sleepiness, the result, we were given to understand, of trouble; but
her heart, it was her own proud boast, was always in the right place.
She could never look at my father and mother sitting anywhere near
each other but she must flop down and weep awhile; the sight of
connubial bliss always reminding her, so she would explain, of the
past glories of her own married state.

Though an earnest enquirer, I was never able myself to grasp the ins
and outs of this past married life of Susan's. Whether her answers
were purposely framed to elude curiosity, or whether they were the
result of a naturally incoherent mind, I cannot say. Their tendency
was to convey confusion.

On Monday I have seen Susan shed tears of regret into the Brussels
sprouts, that she had been debarred by the pressure of other duties
from lately watering "his" grave, which, I gathered, was at Manor
Park. While on Tuesday I have listened, blood chilled, to the recital