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All this I tell you because I am sure that what I feel about Topaz is what Aunt Adela felt about Laura and the Clouds. Laura, you see, adopted the Clouds. From the day when Justin carried her home to his mother, to the end at least of this story, she was theirs, body and soul, clinging to them, shyly, unobtrusively, yet with the delicate tenacity of a white rose-bush adopting a south wall.

Aunt Adela did not, could not, object. Aunt Adela, who lived wholeheartedly for her neighbours and their more intimate affairs, Aunt Adela, who liked to be asked to tête-à-tête tea, or to meet her hostess’s dearest friends, had never overcome a certain aloofness that distinguished Mrs. Cloud and made her a desirable acquaintance. Aunt Adela’s snobbery was harmless enough. To do her justice, money meant nothing to her, poor as she was; but she had her weakness for what she called “the best people.” And Mrs. Cloud, with her gentle interest in your affairs, and her placid and implacable reserve about her own, Mrs. Cloud, with her son at college and her husband on the church wall, and a bishop burgeoning in the family tree, Mrs. Cloud belonged, Aunt Adela felt in her bones, to the very best people.