Really it is a sort of family vault, and if you stop here long enough
you will catch something too."
Barbara thanked her with a sad little smile, and answered that she would
think over her kind invitation and write to her later. But in the end
she never went to London, at least not to stay, perhaps it reminded her
too vividly of her life there with Anthony. At Eastwich she could bear
such memories, but for some unexplained reason it was otherwise in
London.
Indeed, in the course of time her aunt gave up the attempt to persuade
her, and devoted herself to forwarding the fortunes of her other pretty
nieces, Barbara's sisters, two of whom, it should be said, already she
had settled comfortably in life. Also she took a fancy to the boy, in
whose rough, energetic nature she found something akin to her own.
"I am sick of women," she said; "it is a comfort to have to do with a
male thing."
So it came about that after he went to school young Anthony spent a
large share of his holidays at his great-aunt's London house. It may be
added that he got no good from these visits, since Lady Thompson spoilt
him and let him have his way in everything. Also she gave him more money
than a boy ought to have.
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