She was sister to Lord Erymanth, and widow to an Irish gentleman, and
had settled in the next parish to us, with her children, on the death
of her husband.

Her little daughter, Viola, had been spending the day with me, and it
was a lovely spring evening, when we sat on the lawn, wondering
whether I should ever care for anything so much as for those long
shadows from the fir woods upon the sloping field, with the long
grass rippling in the wind, and the border of primroses round the
edge of the wood.

We heard wheels and thought it was the carriage come for Viola, much
too soon, when out ran one of the maids, crying, "Oh! Miss Alison, he
is come. There's ever so many of them!"

I believe we caught hold of one another in our fright, and were
almost surprised when, outstripping lame old Richardson, as he
announced "Mr. Alison!" there came only three persons. They were the
two tallest men I had ever seen, and a little girl of eight years
old. I found my hand in a very large one, and with the words "Are
you my aunt Lucy?" I was, as it were, gathered up and kissed. The
voice, somehow, carried a comfortable feeling in the kindness of its
power and depth; and though it was a mouth bristly with yellow
bristles, such as had never touched me before, the honest friendly
eyes gave me an indescribable feeling of belonging to somebody, and
of having ceased to be alone in the world.

"Here is Eustace," he said, "and little Dora," putting the child
forward as she backed against him, most unwilling to let me kiss her.