Aunt Anne, Volume 1 by W.K. Clifford — Read

The grey sky and the dim trees, the black hedges and the absolute stillness; all these proved excellent comforters to Florence. They made her philosophical and almost smiling again. It was only when an empty waggonette of Steggall's passed her that she remembered the vexations of the morning. "Poor old lady," she said to herself with almost a laugh, "in future she must not be trusted with money, that is all. If she only would not scold me and treat me like a child, I should not mind it so much. Of course when Walter does it, I like it; but I don't like it from Aunt Anne."

She had walked a long way. She was getting tired. The messengers of night were abroad, the stray breezes, the dark flecked clouds, the shadows loitering by the trees, the strange little sounds among the hedges by the wayside. Far off, beyond the wood, she heard a clock belonging to a big house strike six. It was time to hurry home. If she walked the two miles between herself and the cottage quickly, she would be in by half-past six. At seven, after the children had gone to bed, she and Aunt Anne were to sit down to a little evening meal they called supper. They would be very cosy that night; they would linger over their food, and Aunt Anne should talk of bygone days, and the quaint old world that always seemed to be just behind her.