Aunt Patty saw them go, and was glad to be left to herself, although her own thoughts were not very pleasant company. She had done a kind and generous action in an ungracious way, causing those whom she had benefited to feel that they would rather have received the favor from another hand, bringing a real trial upon these dear children, and vexation and regret to herself. She could not look upon her work or its consequences with any satisfaction. What though she had done a good deed, she had not done it quite in the right spirit, and so it seemed it had not brought a blessing. Self-will and temper had been suffered to overcome her once more. Bessie had shamed her by the self-control which she, an old woman, had not shown, and she had been outdone by both these little ones in patience and submission. The policeman's family would have been quite as well off as they were now, and she might still have had the long-desired grove, the object of so many thoughts and wishes, had she never taken up the matter, or had she even allowed her intentions to be known. She had really had an honest desire to keep her generous self-sacrifice a secret, that it should not be published abroad to all the world; but there was, also, an obstinate little corner in her heart which made her determine to keep it from her nephew, lest he should oppose it. "For I want none of his advice or interference," she said, to herself; it being generally the case that those who deal most largely in those articles themselves are the most unwilling to receive them from others.