Out in The Forty-Five

"Girls!" said my Aunt Kezia, looking round at us, "I should just like to know what is to come of the whole four of you!" My Aunt Kezia has an awful way of looking round at us. She begins with Sophy-she is our eldest-then she goes to Fanny, then to Hatty, and ends up with me. As I am the youngest, I have to be ended up with. She generally lays down her work to do it, too; and sometimes she settles her spectacles first, and that makes it feel more awful than ever. However, when she has gone round, she always takes them off-spectacles, I mean-and wipes them, and gives little solemn shakes of her head while she is doing it, as if she thought we were all four going to ruin together, and had got very near the bottom. This afternoon, when she said that, instead of sitting quiet, as we generally do, Hatty-she is the pert one amongst us-actually spoke up.