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 CHAPTER II

AUNT ANNIE AND AUNTY HARRIET

I

Aunt Annie was the first to be told the great news. In the view of both nieces it was in the natural order of things that this august lady should take precedence of the rest of the world. She was so incontestably the family "personage," the eminence she occupied was such a dizzy one, that it would have been just as unthinkable not to grant her priority in a matter of such vital importance, as it would have been to deny it to Queen Victoria in an affair of State.

In point of fact, Aunt Annie, within her own orbit, was the counterpart and reflection of her Sovereign. In an outlook they were alike, they were alike in the range of their ideas, and well-informed people had said that they had tricks of speech and manner in common. This may have been a little in excess of the truth, one of those genial pleasantries it is the part of wisdom to accept in the spirit in which they are offered, but it would be wrong to deny that in the suburb of Laxton Aunt Annie took rank as a very great lady.

It is true that she lived in a small and modest house in an unpretentious street, but all the world knew that the flower of her years had been passed in abodes very