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 sisters fold their handkerchiefs about their noses. And he had a disquieting way of looking as if some secret joke amused him. Christabel agreed with Aunt Clara, who said it was such a pity for himself that Uncle Johnnie seemed to like to laugh at people instead of with them.

Among the great-aunts and the one great-uncle Christabel felt like a flower in a November garden. But that was the sort of thing one couldn't say about oneself. There were drawbacks to being the only member of the family that poetic description applied to, and the only one who had a poetic imagination.

The great-aunts cherished their treasure, and she loved them in return, finding their absurdity touching, listening to the battles that raged as to whose gardener could grow the best gloxinias, to the battle-cry, "There, Sister Susannah, beat that if thee can!" and melting with an ageless understanding. For they are such children, she thought, only wanting to have the biggest, never really seeing the velvety dark,