But that is how it was . None of us approved , as I have said , but none of us was so bitter as your Uncle Paul . Your mother was his favourite sister , and he was very deeply attached to her . She was only a year younger than he . When he bought the Greenwood farm she went and kept house for him for three years before her marriage . When she married , Paul was terribly angry . He was always a strange man , very determined and unyielding . He said he would never forgive her , and he never has . He has never married , and he has lived so long alone at Greenwood with only deaf old Mrs. Bree to keep house for him that he has grown odder than ever . One of us wanted to go and keep house for him , but he would not let us . And -- I must tell you this although I hate to -- he was very angry when he heard we had invited you to visit us , and he said he would not come near the Grange as long as you were here . Oh , you ca n't realize how bitter and obstinate he is . We pleaded with him , but I think that only made him worse . We have felt so bad over it , your Aunt Ellen and your Uncle George and I , but we can do nothing at all . '' Worth had listened gravely . The story was all new to her , but she had long thought there must be a something at the root of her mother 's indifferent relations with her old home and friends . When Aunt Charlotte , flushed and half-tearful , finished speaking , a little glimmer of fun came into Worth 's grey eyes , and her dimple was very pronounced as she said , `` Then , if Uncle Paul will not come to see me , I must go to see him . '' `` My dear ! '' cried both her aunts together in dismay . Aunt Ellen got her breath first .
`` Oh , my dear child , you must not think XXXXX such a thing , '' she cried nervously .
although as for in near of over than to with