And then she was almost certain that he had once kissed one of the maids! She had found it impossible to manage him in any way; and when he positively declared himself as permanently devoted to the degrading iniquities of penny newspapers, she had thought it best to cast him off altogether.

Now, thus late in life, she was going to make another venture, to try an altogether new mode of living,--in order, as she said to herself, that she might be of some use to somebody,--but, no doubt, with a further unexpressed hope in her bosom, that the solitude of her life might be relieved by the companionship of some one whom she might love.

She had arrayed herself in a clean cap and her evening gown, and she went down-stairs looking sternly, with a fully-developed idea that she must initiate her new duties by assuming a mastery at once.

But inwardly she trembled, and was intensely anxious as to the first appearance of her niece.

Of course there would be a little morsel of a bonnet.
She hated those vile patches,--dirty flat daubs of millinery as she called them; but they had become too general for her to refuse admittance for such a thing within her doors.