"All we have to do, is to say that, knowing that Aunt Keswick had written to my father that she was determined to make a match between cousin Junius and me, I was afraid to come down here without putting up some insurmountable obstacle between me and a man that I had not seen since I was a little girl.

Of course I would say, very decidedly, that I wouldn't have married him if I hadn't wanted to; but then, considering Aunt Keswick's very open way of carrying out her plans, it would have been very unpleasant, and indeed impossible for me to be in the house with him unless she saw that there was no hope of a marriage between us; and for this reason I took the name of Mrs Null, or Mrs Nothing; and came down here, secure under the protection of a husband who never existed.

And then, we could say that you and I were a good deal together, and that, although you had supposed, when you came here, that you were in love with Miss March, you had discovered that this was a mistake, and that afterwards we fell in love with each other, and are now engaged.

That would be a straightforward statement of everything, just as it happened; but the great trouble is: How are we going to tell it to Aunt Keswick ?" "You are right," said Lawrence.

"How are we going to tell it ?" "It need not be told!" thundered a strong voice close to their ears.
And then there was a noise of breaking lattice-work and cracking vines, and through the back part of the arbor came an old woman wearing a purple sun-bonnet, and beating down all obstacles before her with a great purple umbrella.