i 69ef9ff463a71164 by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

Aggie. Aunt Aggie didn't like Donald, never had from the day he came to commiserate with her on the tragic death of her parents in the car crash. He was too smooth, too good-looking, too much of a la-de-da, Aunt Aggie had stated openly.
    Her Aunt Susan and Uncle Ralph liked Donald, and both said that he was the kind of man her mother would have liked her to marry. For had not her parents moved into the best part of Newcastle so as to be able to give her a background that would in no way be incongruous to the boarding-school education they insisted on her having, and which was to prepare her to meet, and mate, with someone like Donald. Yes, they said, poor dear Linda would have been over the moon at her daughter's choice, for was not Donald Rouse, besides looking and talking like a gentleman, the nephew of a bishop.
    Yet no approbation of her Aunt Susan and Uncle Ralph could make up for her Aunt Aggie's open hostility, for she liked her Aunt Aggie loved her; she had always had a guilty feeling about her affection for her Aunt Aggie because she knew it was stronger than that which she had for her parents. But now she was finished with her Aunt Aggie; she couldn't be anything else after the things she had said about Donald, kept on saying about him even to the very night before the wedding.
    "That fellow's after your money, that's all he wants," that's what she had dared to say about Donald, who was a parson. On that last night Aggie had shouted so that she had rushed and closed the "drawing-room door and begged, " Oh, be quiet. Aunt Aggie. Donald will be calling any minute. Oh, how can you say such things? "
    "I can and will. Somebody's got to say them; the others can't 'cos they're mesmerised like you. Look, Grace." Aggie's voice had dropped and there came a note of urgent pleading into it.
    "Listen to me. He's a good-looking fellow granted, although he's old enough to be your father, but from my experience that kind of man doesn't look for a good-looking wife not your type, anyway." Her voice sank even lower now as she went on, "Don't you realise it. Grace, you're not only good-looking, you're a beautiful girl. You could have anybody you had a mind to point at. I could name half a dozen men in this town who would jump if you raised your finger. The only reason they are keeping their distance at present is because you are so young and your folks haven't been dead six months yet. But that doesn't seem to trouble your parson friend. And another thing, if that fellow had wanted anything but
    money he'd have been married afore the day at his age, going on thirty-eight. "
    Grace was crying now and had protested, "Oh, Aunt Aggie, how can you?"
    "I can and I will," she had repeated over again, 'and I'm going to tell you this. Grace. It will be the sorriest day's work you'll do in your life if you marry that man the morrow. I tell you I know the type.
    They're like some of the great big whopping turnips you see, fine on the outside but boast inside. It's all the same with these big beauties, and you'll find you'll want more than a good-looking face on the pillow to get you happily through marriage. Aye, you will. And what about your music, eh? What about that? D'you think he'll let you go on with that . ? You wait and see. "
    And now as Grace lay looking into the beautiful face she knew Aunt Aggie was wrong, so terribly wrong, and she felt sorry for Aunt Aggie, because for years she had been looked upon as the oracle of the family.
    Her father used to say nobody could hoodwink Aggie. She had a head on her, had Aggie. How many women after losing their husbands would, or could, carry on his job, and the tricky one at that, of buying and selling property? But Aggie had done it. Yes, Aggie was astute, and cute.
    As Donald rose from the bed, his hand trailing slowly from hers, she forgot her Aunt Aggie, for who could think of a domineering, middle-aged, fat little woman when they were murmuring, "Oh, darling, darling, I do love you." Yet