He had not seen
her for so long that he was rather shy at first, but her good nature
soon set him at his ease. She was so strongly biassed in favour of
anything young that her heart warmed towards him at once, though his
appearance was less prepossessing than she had hoped. She took him
to a cake shop and gave him whatever he liked as soon as she had got
him off the school premises; and Ernest felt at once that she
contrasted favourably even with his aunts the Misses Allaby, who
were so very sweet and good. The Misses Allaby were very poor;
sixpence was to them what five shillings was to Alethea. What chance
had they against one who, if she had a mind, could put by out of her
income twice as much as they, poor women, could spend?
The boy had plenty of prattle in him when he was not snubbed, and
Alethea encouraged him to chatter about whatever came uppermost. He
was always ready to trust anyone who was kind to him; it took many
years to make him reasonably wary in this respect- if indeed, as I
sometimes doubt, he ever will be as wary as he ought to be- and in a
short time he had quite dissociated his aunt from his papa and mamma
and the rest, with whom his instinct told him he should be on his
guard.
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