"'If you please, ma'am,' I begin after a long hesitation.
"Somewhat disconcerted by the sharpness and suddenness of this interruption, I pause, and take some moments to recover myself.
"'If you please, ma'am, when am I to see my aunt?'
"'Mercy alive! and pray who do you suppose I am?'
"'You, ma'am,' I falter, with a vague uneasiness impossible to describe; 'are you not the housekeeper?'
"To say that she glares vacantly at me from behind her spectacles, loses her very power of speech, and grows all at once quite stiff and rigid in her chair, is to convey but a faint picture of the amazement with which she receives this observation.
"'I,' she gasps at length, 'I! Gracious me, child, I am your aunt.' I feel my countenance become an utter blank. I am conscious of turning red and white, hot and cold, all in one moment. My ears tingle; my heart sinks within me; I can neither speak nor think. A dreadful silence follows, and in the midst of this silence my aunt, without any kind of warning, bursts into a grim laugh, and says:
"I could have kissed a kangaroo just then, in the intensity of my relief; and so getting up quite readily, touch her gaunt cheek with my childish lips, and look the gratitude I dare not speak. To my surprise she draws me closer to her knee, passes one hand idly through my hair, looks not unkindly, into my wondering eyes, and murmurs more to herself than me, the name of 'Barbara.'
"This gentle mood is, however, soon dismissed, and as if ashamed of having indulged it, she pushes me away, frowns, shakes her head, and says quite angrily:
"'Nonsense, child, nonsense. It's time you went to bed.'"
"'Your name,' said my aunt, with a little off-hand nod, 'is Bab. Remember that.'" ... [Mrs. Sandyshaft asks her great niece why she took her for the housekeeper; the child hesitates, and at last owns that it was because of her dress.]
"'But what? You must learn to speak out, Bab. I hate people who hesitate.'
"'But Papa said you were so rich, and....'
"'Ah! He said I was rich did he? Rich! Oho! And what more, Bab? What more? Rich indeed! Come, you must tell me. What else did he say when he told you I was rich?'
"'N--nothing more, ma'am,' I replied, startled and confused by her sudden vehemence. 'Indeed nothing more.'