made her spring. "There's nothing in the world the matter with Aunt
Angela," she said; "she's perfectly well."

Blank wonder crept into the old gentleman's little blue eyes and he
shook his head several times in solemn if voiceless protest. Forty years
ago Angela Wilde, as a girl of twenty, had in the accustomed family
phrase "brought lasting disgrace upon them," and she had dwelt, as it
were, in the shadow of the pillory ever since. Unmarried she had yielded
herself to a lover, and afterward when the full scandal had burst upon
her head, though she had not then reached the fulfilment of a singularly
charming beauty, she had condemned herself to the life of a solitary
prisoner within four walls. She had never since the day of her awakening
mentioned the name of her faithless or unfortunate lover, but her silent
magnanimity had become the expression of a reproach too deep for words,
and her bitter scorn of men had so grown upon her in her cloistral
existence that there were hours together when she could not endure even
the inoffensive Percival. Cold, white, and spectral as one of the long
slim candles on an altar, still beautiful with an indignant and wounded
loveliness, she had become in the end at once the shame and the romance
of her family.

"There is no reason under the sun why Aunt Angela shouldn't come down to
dinner with us to-night," persisted Laura. "Don't you see that by
encouraging her as you did in her foolish attitude, you have given her
past power over her for life and death. It is wrong--it is ignoble to
bow down and worship anything--man, woman, child, or event, as she bows
down and worships her trouble."

The flute shook on Uncle Percival's knees. "Ah, Laura, would you have
her face the world again?" he asked.