Miss Pritty was a good soul, but weak. She was Edgar Berrington's
maiden aunt--of an uncertain age--on the mother's side. Her chief
characteristic was delicacy--delicacy of health, delicacy of sentiment,
delicacy of intellect--general delicacy, in fact, all over. She was
slight too--slightly made, slightly educated, slightly pretty, and
slightly cracked. But there were a few things in regard to which Miss
Laura Pritty was strong. She was strong in her affections, strong in
her reverence for all good things (including a few bad things which in
her innocence she thought good), strong in her prejudices and impulses,
and strong--remarkably strong--in parentheses. Her speech was eminently
parenthetical, insomuch that the range of her ideas was wholly
untrammelled by the proprieties of subject or language. Given a point
to be aimed at in conversation, Miss Pritty _never_ aimed at it. She
invariably began with it, and, parting finally from it at the outset,
diverged to any or every other point in nature. Perplexity, as a matter
of course, was the usual result both in speaker and hearer, but then
that mattered little, for Miss Pritty was also strong in easy-going
good-nature.
On the evening in which we introduce her, Miss Pritty was going to have
her dear and intimate friend Aileen Hazlit to tea, and she laid out her
little tea-table with as much care as an engineer might have taken in
drawing a mathematical problem. The teapot was placed in the exact
centre of the tray, with its spout and handle pointing so that a line
drawn through them would have been parallel to the sides of her little
"boudoir." The urn stood exactly behind it. The sugar-basin formed, on
one side of the tray, a _pendant_ to the cream-jug on the other, and
inasmuch as the cream-jug was small, a toast-rack was coupled with it to
constitute the necessary balance. So, too, with the cups: they were
placed equidistant from the teapot, the sides of the tray, and each
other, while a salver of cake on one side of the table was scrupulously
balanced by a plate of buns on the other side.
"There she is--the _darling_!" exclaimed Miss Pritty, with a little skip
and (excuse the word) a giggle as the bell rang.
"Miss Aileen Hazlit," announced Miss Pritty's small and only domestic,
who flung wide open the door of the boudoir, as its owner was fond of
styling it.
Whereupon there entered "an angel in blue, with a straw hat and ostrich
feather."
We quote from the last, almost dying, speech of a hopeless youth in the
town--a lawyer's clerk--whose heart was stamped over so completely with
the word "Aileen" that it was unrecognisable, and practically useless
for any purpose except beating--which it did, hard, at all times.
Aileen was beautiful beyond compare, because, in her case, extreme
beauty of face and feature was coupled with rare beauty of expression,
indicating fine qualities of mind. She was quiet in demeanour, grave in
speech, serious and very earnest in thought, enthusiastic in action,
unconscious and unselfish.
"Pooh! Perfection!" I hear some lady reader ejaculate.
No, fair one, not quite that, but as near it as was compatible with
humanity. Happily there are many such in the world--some with more and
some with less of the external beauty--and man is blessed and the world
upheld by them.
The chief bond that bound Aileen and Miss Pritty together was a text of
Scripture, "Consider the poor." The latter had strong sympathy with the
poor, being herself one of the number. The former, being rich in faith
as well as in means, "considered" them. The two laid their heads
together and concerted plans for the "raising of the masses," which
might have been food for study to _some_ statesmen. For instance, they
fed the hungry and clothed the naked; they encouraged the well-disposed
and reproved the evil; they "scattered seeds of kindness" wherever they
went; they sowed the precious Word of God in all kinds of ground--good
and bad; they comforted the sorrowing; they visited the sick and the
prisoner; they refused to help, or, in any way to encourage, the idle;
they handed the obstreperous and violent over to the police, with the
hope--if not the recommendation--that the rod should not be spared; and
in all cases they prayed for them. The results were considerable, but,
not being ostentatiously trumpeted, were not always recognised or traced
to their true cause.
"Come away, darling," exclaimed Miss Pritty, eagerly embracing and
kissing her friend, who accepted, but did not return, the embrace,
though she did the kiss. "I thought you were not coming at all, and I
have not seen you for a whole week! What has kept you? There, put off
your hat. I'm _so_ glad to see you, dear Aileen. Isn't it strange that
I'm so fond of you? They say that people who are contrasts generally
draw together--at least I've often heard Mrs Boxer, the wife of Captain
Boxer, you know, of the navy, who used to swear so dreadfully before he
was married, but, I am happy to say, has quite given it up now, which
says a great deal for wedded life, though it's a state that I don't
quite believe in myself, for if Adam had never married Eve he would not
have been tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, and so there would have
been no sin and no sorrow or poverty--no poor! Only think of that."
"So that our chief occupation would have been gone," said Aileen, with a
slight twinkle of her lustrous blue eyes, "and perhaps you and I might
never have met."
Miss Pritty replied to this something very much to the effect that she
would have preferred the entrance of sin and all its consequences--
poverty included--into the world, rather than have missed making the
friendship of Miss Hazlit. At least her words might have borne that
interpretation--or any other!
"My father detained me," said Aileen, seating herself at the table,
while her volatile friend put lumps of sugar into the cups, with a
tender yet sprightly motion of the hand, as if she were doing the cups a
special kindness--as indeed she was, when preparing one of them to touch
the lips of Aileen.
"Naughty man, why did he detain you?" said Miss Pritty.
"Only to write one or two notes, his right hand being disabled at
present by rheumatism."
"A gentleman, Miss, in the dinin'-room," said the small domestic,
suddenly opening a chink of the door for the admission of her somewhat
dishevelled head. "He won't send his name up--says he wants to see
you."
"How vexing!" exclaimed Miss Pritty, "but I'll go down. I'm determined
that he shan't interrupt our _tete-a-tete_."
Miss Pritty uttered a little scream of surprise on entering the
dining-room.
"Well, aunt," said Edgar Berrington, with a hearty smile, as he extended
his hand, "you are surprised to see me?"
"Of course I am, dear Eddy," cried Miss Pritty, holding up her cheek for
a kiss. "Sit down. Why, you were in London when I last heard of you."
"True, but I'm not in London now, as you see. I've been a week here."
"A week, Eddy! And you did not come to see me till now?"
"Well, I ought to apologise," replied the youth, with a slight look of
confusion, "but--the fact is, I came down partly on business, and--and--
so you see I've been very busy."
"Of course," laughed Miss Pritty; "people who have business to do are
usually very busy! Well, I forgive you, and am glad to see you--but--"
"Well, aunt--but what?"
"In short, Eddy, I happen to be particularly engaged this evening--on
_business_, too, like yourself; but, after all, why should I not
introduce you to my friend? You might help us in our discussion--it is
to be about the poor. Do you know much about the poor and their
miseries?"