It's as bad as looking
one's age. Tell me about the Brimley Bomefields."
"Well," said Clovis, "the beginning of their tragedy was that they
found an aunt. The aunt had been there all the time, but they had
very nearly forgotten her existence until a distant relative
refreshed their memory by remembering her very distinctly in his
will; it is wonderful what the force of example will accomplish.
The aunt, who had been unobtrusively poor, became quite pleasantly
rich, and the Brimley Bomefields grew suddenly concerned at the
loneliness of her life and took her under their collective wings.
She had as many wings around her at this time as one of those
beast-things in Revelation."
"So far I don't see any tragedy from the Brimley Bomefields' point
of view," said the Baroness.
"We haven't got to it yet," said Clovis. "The aunt had been used
to living very simply, and had seen next to nothing of what we
should consider life, and her nieces didn't encourage her to do
much in the way of making a splash with her money. Quite a good
deal of it would come to them at her death, and she was a fairly
old woman, but there was one circumstance which cast a shadow of
gloom over the satisfaction they felt in the discovery and
acquisition of this desirable aunt: she openly acknowledged that a
comfortable slice of her little fortune would go to a nephew on
the other side of her family.
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