Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/58

46 We seemed to have almost no relations.

We knew our father had a step-sister, a good deal older than he. We heard that she lived in London and was childless. That was all.

My mother had been an orphan. She never seemed to want to talk about the past. When we were little we took no interest in these things. As we grew older we grew afraid of paining her with questions. In some crisis of house-cleaning a photograph came to the surface. Who was this with the hair rolled high and the pear-shaped earrings? Oh, that was Mrs. Harborough.

"Aunt Josephine?"

"Well, your father's step-sister."

All hope of better acquaintance with her was dashed by learning that she had opposed our father's marriage, opposed it bitterly.

"She couldn't have known you," Bettina said.

"That I was not known to her was crime enough," my mother answered with unwonted bitterness.

Just as we were made to feel that questions about Aunt Josephine were troubling, I felt now that to inquire into our precise financial condition was to harass and depress my mother. The