"Why not?
I can look after myself." "Well, there's your uncle waiting in the drawing-room--just come," said the old woman, climbing down from the chair with that silent imperturbable discontent that always frightened Maggie.
"Uncle Mathew! Here! in this house!" Maggie, even in the moment of her first astonishment, was amazed at her own delight.

That she should ever feel THAT about Uncle Mathew! Truly it showed how unhappy she had been, and she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and pushed back the drawing-room door.
"Uncle Mathew!" she cried.
Then at the sight of him she stood where she was.

The man who faced her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality, was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole house.

He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in before--a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it was buttoned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the back.

He had a white flower in his button-hole, and a rather soiled white handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket.