talk quickly enough get through whatever she is doing with rapidity enough i remember father s telling her once that she would never have patience to lie and wait for the day of judgment but would get up every century or two to hurry things along it always seems as if she would wear herself to in a week yet here she is more lively at sixty than i am at less than half that age she was very kind and softened wonderfully when she spoke of mother i think that she loved her more than she does any creature now alive aunt she said last night was n t human she was far too for that but she was too sweet and human for an angel for my part i think she was something far better than either and far more sensible this was a speech so characteristic that it brought me to tears and smiles together to night cousin came to the point of her errand with customary i came down she said to see how soon you expect to arrange to live with me i had n t expected anything about it i returned of course you would keep the house she went on entirely my feeble protest you might want to come back sometimes this summer i m going to take you to europe i am too much accustomed to her habit of planning things to be taken entirely by surprise but it did rather take my breath away to find my future so completely disposed of i felt almost as if i were not even to have a chance to protest but i never thought of giving up the house i managed to say the of a saint of course not why should you she returned briskly you have money enough to keep up the place and live where you please don t i know that for this ten years you and aunt have n t spent half your income keep it of course for as i say sometimes you may like to come back for old times sake i could only stare at her and laugh oh you laugh cousin remarked more forcibly than ever but you ought to understand that i ve taken charge of you we are all that are left of the family now and i m the head of it you are a foolish thing anyway and let everybody impose on your good nature you need somebody to look after you if i d had you in charge you d never have got tangled up in that foolish engagement i m glad you had the sense to break it i felt as if she had given me a blow in the face but i could not answer don t blush like that cousin commanded it s all over and you know i always said you were a fool to marry a country lawyer father was a country lawyer i retorted cousin was a judge and a man whose writings had given him a wide reputation don t outrage his memory by calling him a rustic for my part i never had any patience with him for burying himself in the country like a you forget that mother s health � i began but with cousin one is never sure of being allowed to complete a sentence oh yes she interrupted of course i forgot well if there could be an excuse aunt would serve for anything i beg your pardon march but now all tliat is past and gone and fortunately the family is still well enough remembered in boston for you to take up life there with very little trouble that s what i had in mind ten years ago when i insisted on your coming out people who saw me then will hardly remember me the folks that knew your father and mother she went on serenely are of course old people like me but they will help you to know the younger generation besides those you know will not have forgotten you a is not so easily forgotten and you were an uncommonly pretty bud what a fool you were not to marry i you always were a fool cousin generally a compliment in this manner and it prevents me from being too much elated by her praise she was interrupted here by the necessity of going to prepare for supper miss did not come over to day so we were alone together no sooner were we seated at the supper table than she to the attack when you live in boston she said i shall � suppose i should not live in boston i interrupted but you will what else should you do i might go on living here living here she cried out you don t call this living do you how long is it since you heard any music or saw a picture or went to the theatre or had any society i was forced to confess that music and painting and acting were all entirely lacking in but i the of a saint remarked that i had all the books that attracted me and i protested against her saying i had n t any society oh you see human beings now and then cousin observed coolly and i dare say they are very worthy creatures but you know yourself they are not society you haven t forgotten the year i brought you out i have not forgotten it of course and i cannot deny that when i think of that winter in boston the year i was nineteen i do feel a little mournful sometimes it was all so delightful and it is all so far away now i hardly heard what cousin said next i was thinking how a home in boston would be and how completely alone as for family i am cousin is the only near relative i have in 