Read this extract from Secrets (by Bernard MacLaverty) and then answer the question that follows it: His aunt had been small - her head on a level with his when she sat at her table – and she seemed to get smaller each year. Her skin fresh, her hair white and waved and always well washed. She wore no jewellery except a cameo ring on the third finger of her right hand and, around her neck, a gold locket on a chain. The white classical profile on the ring was almost worn through and had become translucent and indistinct. The boy had noticed the ring when she had read to him as a child. In the beginning fairy tales, then as he got older extracts from famous novels, Lorna Doone, Persuasion, Wuthering Heights and her favourite extract, because she read it so often, Pip's meeting with Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. She would sit with him on her knee, her arms around him and holding the page flat with her hand. When he was bored he would interrupt her and ask about the ring. He loved hearing her tell of how her grandmother had given it to her as a brooch and she had had a ring made from it. He would try to count back to see how old it was. Had her grandmother got it from her grandmother? And if so what had she turned it into? She would nod her head from side to side and say, ‘How would I know a thing like that?' keeping her place in the closed book with her finger. 'Don't be so inquisitive,' she'd say. ‘Let's see what happens next in the story.' One day she was sitting copying figures into a long narrow book with a dip pen when he came into her room. She didn't look up but when he asked her a question she just said, ‘Mm?' and went on writing. The vase of irises on the oval table vibrated slightly as she wrote. 'What is it?' She wiped the nib on blotting paper and looked up at him over her reading glasses. 'I've started collecting stamps and Mamma says you might have some.' 'Does she now – ?' She got up from the table and went to the tall walnut bureau-bookcase standing in the alcove. From a shelf of the bookcase she took a small wallet of keys and selected one for the lock. There was a harsh metal shearing sound as she pulled the desk flap down. The writing area was covered with green leather which had dog-eared at the corners. The inner part was divided into pigeon holes, all bulging with papers. Some of them, envelopes, were gathered in batches nipped at the waist with elastic bands. There were postcards and bills and cash-books. She pointed to the postcards. 'You may have the stamps on those,' she said. 'But don't tear them. Steam them off.' She went back to the oval table and continued writing. He sat on the arm of the chair looking through the picture post-cards – torchlight processions at Lourdes, brown photographs of town centres, dull black and whites of beaches backed by faded hotels. Then he turned them over and began to sort the stamps. Spanish, with a bald man, French with a rooster, German with funny jerky print, some Italian with what looked like a chimney-sweep's bundle and a hatchet. 'These are great,' he said. 'I haven't got any of them.' 'Just be careful how you take them off.' 'Can I take them downstairs?' 'Is your mother there?' 'Yes.' 'Then perhaps it's best if you bring the kettle up here.' He went down to the kitchen. His mother was in the morning room polishing silver. He took the kettle and the flex upstairs. Except for the dipping and scratching of his aunt's pen the room was silent. It was at the back of the house overlooking the orchard and the sound of traffic from the main road was distant and muted. A tiny rattle began as the kettle warmed up, then it bubbled and steam gushed quietly from its spout. The cards began to curl slightly in the jet of steam but she didn't seem to be watching. The stamps peeled moistly off and he put them in a saucer of water to flatten them. 'Who is Brother Benignus?' he asked. She seemed not to hear. He asked again and she looked over her glasses. 'He was a friend.' His flourishing signature appeared again and again. Sometimes Bro Benignus, sometimes Benignus and once Iggy. 'Is he alive?' 'No, he's dead now. Watch the kettle doesn't run dry.' When he had all the stamps off he put the postcards together and replaced them in the pigeon-hole. He reached over towards the letters but before his hand touched them his aunt's voice, harsh for once, warned. 'A-A-A,' she moved her pen from side to side. 'Do-not-touch,' she said and smiled. 'Anything else, yes! That section, no!' She resumed her writing. The boy went through some other papers and found some photographs. One was of a beautiful girl. It was very old-fashioned but he could see that she was beautiful. The picture was a pale brown oval set on a white square of card. The edges of the oval were misty. The girl in the photograph was young and had dark, dark hair scraped severely back and tied like a knotted rope on the top of her head – high arched eyebrows, her nose straight and thin, her mouth slightly smiling, yet not smiling – the way a mouth is after smiling. Her eyes looked out at him dark and knowing and beautiful. 'Who is that?' He asked. 'Why? What do you think of her?' 'She's all right.' 'Do you think she is beautiful?' The boy nodded. 'That's me,' she said. The boy was glad he had pleased her in return for the stamps. How does MacLaverty vividly convey the boy's fascination with his aunt at this moment in the story?