Aunt Perdy, when she had kissed Joanna repeatedly on both cheeks, held her off by the shoulders, saying she must have “a good look” at her. But in a trice her steadfast gaze went from her niece’s glowing face to the long widow’s veil which floated behind.

“Fie, for shame, child!” she exclaimed, stretching her hand over Joanna’s shoulder and drawing the trail of crape towards her. “You – an Erskine – to wear such a thing! As though we were of those that sorrow without hope. I’m amazed at you. Is that all my poor sister has taught her girls?”

Joanna tried to explain that she had not wished to hurt her sister-in-law’s feelings. But Aunt Perdy would not listen.

“Weak, weak!” she said, shaking her head. “But ’tis written on your face. The moment I met you, I saw it. You are too yielding. I used to be too yielding. Life has taught me better, though. You know what dear Browning says –

‘That rage was right in the main, that acquiescence vain’

And remember that though we are told that Christ ‘pleased not Himself,’ we know very well that neither did He please others. But see, we’ll say no more now. Luckily I always carry my shears with me.”

Aunt Perdy groped under her wonderful dolman among the folds of her skirt, and presently brought to light a long pair of scissors which were fastened by several yards of tape to her waist. She then walked slowly round Joanna, commanding her to stand still while she cut off the draperies of widowhood.

“There, that’s better!” she said. She was delighted as a child with her work. “And now give auntie another hearty kiss!”

Again she pressed Joanna to her breast, again held her off for inspection, exclaiming, as if she now saw her for the first time, “So this is Juley’s little daughter!”

By this time everybody in the station was staring at them: staring not rudely or furtively as people would have stared in England, but with unconcealed interest, and encouraging smiles for such a display of family emotion. (It is only in the matter of sex that the Italian is ill-mannered.) And while Joanna felt that she would have been welcomed quite as warmly without onlookers, she knew her aunt was stimulated by their audience. “This is an historical meeting,” Perdy seemed to say, with a careless invitation to the public, “between a very remarkable woman and her niece. Look on by all means. It does not matter to me; nor to her, if she is indeed my niece!”

To the gnarled, old peasant whom she had brought with her to carry the luggage, she announced Joanna as her Scottish niece, and the man nodded and smiled. He had to congratulate the Signora on having so beautiful a relation, with a face like the Blessed Virgin’s, and all the way from Scotland too!