Then she added with a laugh , `` Mary , did you ever see anything so funny as Aunt Olivia sitting on ` Mr. Malcolm MacPherson 's ' knee ? '' It WAS funny . Aunt Olivia thought it very unbecoming to sit there before us , but he made her do it . He would say , with his big , jolly laugh , `` Do n't be minding the little girls , '' and pull her down on his knee and hold her there . To my dying day I shall never forget the expression on the poor little woman 's face . But , as the days went by and Mr. Malcolm MacPherson began to insist on a date being set for the wedding , Aunt Olivia grew to have a strangely disturbed look . She became very quiet , and never laughed except under protest . Also , she showed signs of petulance when any of us , but especially father , teased her about her beau . I pitied her , for I think I understood better than the others what her feelings really were . But even I was not prepared for what did happen . I would not have believed that Aunt Olivia could do it . I thought that her desire for marriage in the abstract would outweigh the disadvantages of the concrete . But one can never reckon with real , bred-in-the-bone old-maidism . One morning Mr. Malcolm MacPherson told us all that he was coming up that evening to make Aunt Olivia set the day . Peggy and I laughingly approved , telling him that it was high time for him to assert his authority , and he went off in great good humour across the river field , whistling a Highland strathspey . But Aunt Olivia looked like a martyr . She had a fierce attack of housecleaning that day , and put everything in flawless order , even to the corners . `` As if there was going to be a funeral in the house , '' sniffed Peggy . Peggy and I were up in the south-west room at dusk that evening , piecing a quilt , when we heard Mr. Malcolm MacPherson shouting out in the hall below to know if anyone was home . I ran out to the landing , but as I did so Aunt Olivia came out of her room , brushed past me , and flitted downstairs .
`` Mr. MacPherson , '' I heard her say XXXXX double-distilled primness , `` will you please come into the parlour ?
about as before for in like on than to with