CHAPTER II.


MY UNCLE AND AUNT.

We were a curious household. I remembered neither father nor mother;
and the woman I had been taught to call _auntie_ was no such near
relation. My uncle was my father's brother, and my aunt was his cousin,
by the mother's side. She was a tall, gaunt woman, with a sharp nose
and eager eyes, yet sparing of speech. Indeed, there was very little
speech to be heard in the house. My aunt, however, looked as if she
could have spoken. I think it was the spirit of the place that kept her
silent, for there were those eager eyes. She might have been expected
also to show a bad temper, but I never saw a sign of such. To me she
was always kind; chiefly, I allow, in a negative way, leaving me to do
very much as I pleased. I doubt if she felt any great tenderness for
me, although I had been dependent upon her care from infancy. In
after-years I came to the conclusion that she was in love with my
uncle; and perhaps the sense that he was indifferent to her save after
a brotherly fashion, combined with the fear of betraying herself and
the consciousness of her unattractive appearance, to produce the
contradiction between her looks and her behaviour.

Every morning, after our early breakfast, my uncle walked away to the
farm, where he remained until dinner-time. Often, when busy at my own
invented games in the grass, I have caught sight of my aunt, standing
motionless with her hand over her eyes, watching for the first glimpse
of my uncle ascending from the hollow where the farm-buildings lay; and
occasionally, when something had led her thither as well, I would watch
them returning together over the grass, when she would keep glancing up