"Maggie," said Aunt Anne, "has been very good.""And she's tired, I'm sure," continued the little lady, who must of course be Aunt Elizabeth."The journey was easy, dear.And you had no change.They gave you footwarmers, I hope.It's been lovely weather.I'm so glad to see you, dear.I've had no photograph of you since you were a baby."Aunt Elizabeth had a way, Maggie thought, of collecting a number of little disconnected statements as though she were working out a sum and hoped--but was not very certain--that she would achieve a successful answer."Add two and five and three and four..." The statements that she made were apparently worlds apart in interest and importance, but she hoped with good fortune to flash upon the boards a fine result.She was nervous, Maggie saw, and her thin shoulders were a little bent as though she expected some one from behind to strike her suddenly in the small of the back.
"She's afraid of something," thought Maggie.
Aunt Elizabeth had obviously not the strong character of her sister Anne.
"Thank you," said Maggie, looking, for no reason at all, at Mr.
Magnus, "I slept in the train, so I'm not tired." She stopped then, because there was nothing more to say.She felt that she ought to kiss her aunt; she thought she saw in her aunt's small rather watery eyes an appeal that she should do so.The distance, however, seemed infinite, and Maggie had a strange feeling that her bending down would break some spell, that the picture in the passage would fall with a ghostly clatter, that Edward the parrot would scream and shriek, that the gas would burst into a bubbling horror, that the big black cat would leap upon her and tear her with its claws.
"Well, I'm not afraid," she thought.And, as though she were defying the universe, she bent down and kissed her aunt.She fancied that this act of hers produced a little sigh of relief.Every one seemed to settle down.They all sat, and conversation was general.