Francis recently, must have done nothing whatever but buy, and buy, and buy things, and then, when he got them home, have just dumped them down anywhere! There's some order here," she added, looking round, "but across there, in the north wing, it's confusion."
"Did you know your great-uncle?" I asked.
"I? No!" she replied. "Oh, dear me, no! I'd never been in the north until Uncle Francis came home from India some months ago and fetched me from the school where I'd been ever since my father and mother died—that was when I was twelve. No, except my father, I never knew any of the Raven family. I believe Uncle Francis and myself are the very last."
"You must like living under the old family roof?" I suggested.
She gave me a somewhat undecided look.
"I'm not quite sure," she answered. "Uncle Francis is the very soul of kindness—I think he's the very kindest person, man or woman, I ever came across, but—I don't know."
"Don't know—what?" I asked.
"Don't know if I really like this place," she said. "As I said to you this afternoon, this is a very odd house altogether, and there's a strange atmosphere about it, and I think something must have happened here. I—well, personally, I feel as if I were something so very small and insignificant, shut up in immensity."
"That's because it's a little strange, even now," I suggested. "You'll get used to it. And I suppose there's society."
