Aunt Lavvy had come to stay.
When she came you had the old feeling of something interesting about to
happen. Only you knew now that this was an illusion.
She talked to you as though, instead of being thirty-three, you were
still very small and very young and ignorant of all the things that
really mattered. She was vaguer and greyer, more placid than ever, and
more content with God.
Impossible to believe that Papa used to bully her and that Aunt Lavvy had
revolted.
"For thirty-three years, Emilius, thirty-three years"--
Sunday supper at Five Elms; on the table James Martineau's _Endeavours
After the Christian Life_.
She wondered why she hadn't thought of Aunt Lavvy. Aunt Lavvy knew Dr.
Martineau. As long as you could remember she had always given a strong
impression of knowing him quite well.
But when Mary had made it clear what she wanted her to ask him to do, it
turned out that Aunt Lavvy didn't know Dr. Martineau at all.
And you could see she thought you presumptuous.