At its first appearance this discovery was so strange and odd that Maggie refused to indulge it.

Love seemed so far from Aunt Anne.

She greeted Mr.Magnus from the chill distance whence she greeted the rest of the world--she gave him no more than she gave any one else--But Mr.Magnus did not seem to desire more.

He waited patiently, a slightly ironical and self-contemptuous worshipper at a shrine that very seldom opened its doors, and never admitted him to its altar.

It was this irony that Maggie liked in him; she regarded herself in the same way.