The Burtons left Dacrefield the next morning, and at lunch Aunt Maria "pulled them to pieces" with as little remorse as a cook would pluck a partridge.

I never saw Miss Eliza Burton again.
Aunt Maria did not fondle or spoil me.

She might perhaps have shown more tenderness to her brother's only and motherless child; but, after Miss Burton, hers was a fault on the right side.

She had a kindly interest in me, and she showed it by asking me to pay her a visit in London.
"It will do the child good, Regie," she said to my father.

"He will be with other children, and all our London sights will be new to him.