Aunt Mary was very sincere in owning up to her own past errors.

"I made a big mistake about the life that boy was leadin'," she said in the course of the conversation. "He took me everywhere where he was in the habit of goin', an' so far from its bein' wicked, I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. There ain't no harm in havin' fun, an' it does cost a lot of money. I can understand it all now, an' as I'm a great believer in settin' wrong right whenever you can, I want Jack put right in my will right off. I want—" and then were unfolded the glorious possibilities of the future for her youngest, petted nephew. He was not only to be reinstated in the will, but he was to reign supreme. The other four children were to be rich—very rich,—but Jack was to be the heir.

Mr. Stebbins was well pleased. He was very fond of Jack and had always been particularly patient with him on that account. He felt that this was a personal reward of merit, for it cannot be denied that Jack had certainly cashed very large checks on the bank of his forbearance.

When all was finished, and Joshua and Lucinda had been called in and had duly affixed their signatures to the important document, the buggy was brought to the door again and Mr. Stebbins stepped in and allowed himself to be replaced where they had taken him from.

Joshua returned alone.

"There, what did I tell you!" said Lucinda, who was waiting for him behind the wood-house,—"she did want to change her will."

"Well, she changed it, didn't she?" said Joshua.

"I guess she wants to give him all she's got, since that week in New York," said Lucinda.

"Then she'll give him all she's got," said Joshua.

Lucinda's eyes grew big.

"An' she'll give it to you, too, if you don't look out and stay where you can hear her bell if she rings it," Joshua added, with his usual frankness, and then he whipped up Billy and drove on to the barn.

Arethusa returned late in the afternoon, very warm, very wilted. Aunt Mary looked over the cotton purchase, and deigned to approve.

"But, my heavens, Arethusa," she exclaimed immediately afterwards, "if you had any idea how dirty and dusty and altogether awful you do look, you wouldn't be able to get to soap and water fast enough."

At that poor Arethusa sighed, and, gathering up her hat, and hat-pins, and veil, and gloves, and purse, and handkerchief, went away to wash.



CHAPTER TWENTY - JACK'S JOY

About the first of July many agreeable things happened.

One was that Mr. Stebbins found it advisable to address a discreet letter to John Watkins, Jr., Denham, conveying the information that although he must not count unduly upon the future, still, if he behaved himself, he might with safety allow his expenditures to mount upward monthly to a certain limit. This was the way in which Aunt Mary salved her conscience and saved her pride all at once.

"I don't want him to think that I don't mean things when I say 'em," she had carefully explained to Mr. Stebbins, "but I can't bear to think that there's anybody in New York without money enough to have a good time there."

Mr. Stebbins had made a note of the sum which the allowance was to compass and had promised to write the letter at once.

"What did you do the last time you were in the city?" Aunt Mary asked.

"I was much occupied with business," said the lawyer, "but I found time to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and—"

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Aunt Mary, "who was takin' you 'round! I never had a second for any museums or arts;—you ought to have seen a vaudeville, or that gondola place! I was ferried around four times and the music lasted all through." She stopped and reflected. "I guess you can make that money a hundred a month more," she said slowly. "I don't want the boy to ever feel stinted or have to run in debt."

Mr. Stebbins smiled, and the result was that Jack began to pay up the bills for his aunt's entertainment very much more rapidly than he had anticipated doing.

Another pleasant thing was that a week or so later—very soon after Mrs. Rosscott had given up her town house and returned to the protection of the parental slate-tiles—Burnett's father, a peppery but jovial old gentleman (we all know the kind), suddenly asked why Bob never came home any more. This action on the part of the head of the house being tantamount to the completest possible forgiveness and obliviousness of the past, Burnett's mother, of whom the inquiry had been made, wept tears of sincerest joy and wrote to the youngest of her flock to return to the ancestral fold just as soon as he possibly could. He came, and as a result, a fortnight later Jack came, and Mitchell came, and Clover came. Mrs. Rosscott, as we have previously stated, was already there, and so were Maude Lorne and a great many others. Some of the others were pretty girls and Burnett and two of his friends found plenty to amuse them, but Burnett's dearest friend, his bosom friend, his Fidus Achates, found no one to amuse him, because he was in earnest, and had eyes for no feminine prettiness, his sight being dazzled by the radiance of one surpassing loveliness. He had worked tremendously hard the first month of daily laboring, and felt he deserved a reward. Be it said for Jack that the reward of which Aunt Mary had the bestowing counted for very little with him except in its relation to the far future. The real goal which he was striving toward, the real laurels that he craved—Ah! they lay in another direction.

Middle July is a lovely time to get off among the trees and grass, and lie around in white flannels or white muslins, just as the case may be. It was too warm to do much else than that, and Heaven knows that Jack desired nothing better, as long as his goddess smiled upon him.

It was curious about his goddess. She seemed to grow more beautiful every time that he saw her. Perhaps it was her native air that gave her that charming flush; perhaps it was the joy of being at home again; perhaps it was—no, he didn't dare to hope that. Not yet. Not even with all that she had done for him fresh in his memory. The humility of true love was so heavy on his heart that his very dreams were dulled with hopelessness, the majority of them seeming too vividly dyed in Paradise hues for their fulfillment in daily life to ever appear possible. But still he was very, very happy to be there with her—beside her—and to hear her voice and look into her eyes whenever the trouble some "other people" would leave them alone together. And she did seem happy, too. And so rejoiced that the tide of Aunt Mary's wrath had been successfully turned. And so rejoiced that he was at work, even in the face of her hopes as to his college career. And also so rejoiced to take up the gay, careless thread of their mutual pleasure again.

The morning after the gathering of the party was Saturday and an ideal day—that sort of ideal day when house parties naturally sift into pairs and then fade away altogether. The country surrounding our particular party was densely wooded and not at all settled, the woods were laid out in a fascinating system of walks and benches which in no case commanded views of one another, and the shade overhead was the shade of July and as propitious to rest as it was to motion. Mitchell took a girl in gray and two sets of golf clubs and started out in the opposite direction from the links, Clover took a girl in green and a camera and went another way, Burnett took a girl in a riding habit and two saddle horses and followed the horses' noses whither they led, and Jack—Jack smoked cigarettes on the piazza and waited—waited.

Mrs. Rosscott came out after a while and asked him why he didn't go to walk also.

"Just what I was thinking as to yourself," he said, very boldly as to voice, and very beseechingly as to eyes.

"Oh, I'm so busy," she said, laughing up into his eyes and then laughing down at the ground—"you see I'm the only married daughter to help mamma."

"But you've been helping all the morning," he complained, "and besides how can you help? One would think that your mother was beating eggs or turning mattresses."

"I have to work harder than that," said Mrs. Rosscott; "I have to make people know one another and like one another and not all want to make love to the same girl."

"You can't help their all wanting to make love to the same girl," said Jack; "the more you try to convince them of their folly the deeper in love they are bound to fall. I'm an illustration of that myself."

Mrs. Rosscott looked at him then and curved her mouth sweetly.

"You do say such pretty things," she said. "I don't see how you've learned so much in so little time. Why, General Jiggs in there is three times your age and he tangles himself awfully when he tries to be sweet."

"Perhaps his physician has recommended gymnastics," said Jack.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Rosscott laughing, and then she turned as if to go in.

"Oh, don't," said her lover, barring the way with great suddenness; "you really mustn't, you know. I've been patient for so long and been good for so long and I must be rewarded—I really must. Do come out with me somewhere—anywhere—for only a half-hour,—please."

She looked at him.

"Won't Maude do?" she asked.

"No, she won't," he said beneath his breath; "whatever do you suggest such a thing for? You make me ready to tell you to your face that you want to go as bad as I want you to go, but I shan't say so because I know too much."

"You do know a lot, don't you?" said she, with an expression of great respect; "why, if you were to dare to hint to me that I wanted to go out with you instead of staying in and talking Rembrandt with Mr. Morley, I'd never forgive you the longest day I live."

"I know you wouldn't," said he, "and you may be quite sure that I shall not say it. On the contrary I shall merely implore you to forget your own pleasure in consideration of mine."

"I really ought to devote the morning to Mr. Morley," she said meditatively; "it's such an honor his coming here, you know."

"A little bit of a whiskered monkey," said Jack in great disgust; "an honor, indeed!"

"He's a very great man," said Mrs. Rosscott; "every sort of institution has given him a few letters to put after his name, and some have given him whole syllables."

"You must get a straw hat, you know, or a sun-shade; it will be hot in half an hour."

"Oh, I couldn't stay out half an hour; fifteen minutes would be the longest."

"All right, fifteen minutes, then, but do hurry."

"I didn't say that I would go," she said, opening her eyes; "and yet I feel myself gone." She laughed lightly.

"Do hurry," he pleaded freshly; "oh, I am so hungry to—"

She disappeared within doors and five minutes later came back with one of those charming floppy English garden hats, tied with a muslin bow beneath her dimpled chin.

"This is so good of me," she said, as they went down the steps.

"Very good, heavenly good," said Jack; and then neither spoke again until they had crossed the Italian garden and entered the American wood. She looked into his eyes then and smiled half-shyly and half-provokingly.

"You are such a baby," she said; "such a baby! Do ask me why and I'll tell you half a dozen whys. I'd love to."

The path was the smoothest and shadiest of forest paths, the hour was the sweetest and sunniest of summer hours, the moment was the brightest and happiest of all the moments which they had known together—up to now.

"Do tell me," he said; "I'm wild to know."

He took her hand and laid it on his arm. For that little while she was certainly his and his alone, and no man had a better claim to her. "Go on and tell me," he repeated.

"There is one big reason and there are lots of little ones. Which will you have first?"

"The little ones, please."

"Then, listen; you are like a baby because you are impatient, because you are spoilt, because when you want anything you think that you must have it, and because you like to be walked with."

"Are those the little reasons," he said when she paused; "and what's the big one?"

"The big one," she said slowly; "Oh, I'm afraid that you won't like the big one!"

"Perhaps it will be all the better for me if I don't," he laughed; "at any rate I beg and pray and plead to know it."

"What a dear boy!" she laughed. "If you want to know as badly as that, I'd have to tell you anyhow, whether I wanted to or not. It's because I'm so much the oldest."

"Oh!" said Jack, much disappointed. "Is that why?"

"And then too," she continued, "you seem even younger because of your being so unsophisticated."

"So I am unsophisticated, am I?" he asked grimly.

"Yes," she said nodding; "at least you impress me so."

"I'm glad of that," he said after a little pause.

She looked up quickly.

"Truly?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Oh," she laughed, "if you say that, then I shall know that you are less unsophisticated than I thought you were."

"Why so?" he asked surprised.

"Don't you know that meek, mild men always try to insinuate that they are regular fire-eaters, and vice versa? Well, it's so—and it's so every time. There was once a man who was kissing me, and he drew my hands up around his neck in such a clever, gentle way that I was absolutely positive that he had had no end of practice drawing arms up in that way and I just couldn't help saying: 'Oh, how many women you must have kissed!' What do you think he answered?—merely smiled and said: 'Not so many as you might imagine.' He showed how much he knew by the way he answered, for oh! he had. I found that out afterwards."

"What did you do then?" he asked, frowning. "Cut him?"

"No; I married him. Why, of course I was going to marry him when he kissed me, or I wouldn't have let him kiss me. Do you suppose I let men kiss me as a general thing? What are you thinking of?"

"I was thinking of you," he said. "It's a horrible habit I've fallen into lately. But, never mind; keep on talking."

"I don't remember what I was saying," she said. "Oh, yes, I do too. About men, about good and bad men. Now, even if I didn't know how much trouble you'd made in the world, I'd divine it all the instant that you were willing to admit being unsophisticated. People always crave to be the opposite of what they are; the drug shops couldn't sell any peroxide of hydrogen if that wasn't so."

He laughed and forgot his previous vexation.

"Now, look at me," she continued. "Oh, I didn't mean really—I mean figuratively; but never mind. Now, I'm nothing but a bubble and a toy, and I ache to be considered a philosopher. Don't you remember my telling you what a philosopher I was, the very first conversation that we ever had together? I do try so hard to delude myself into thinking I am one, that some days I'm almost sure that I really am one. Last night, for instance, I was thinking how nice it would be for my Cousin Maude to marry you."

"Ye gods!" cried Jack.

"She's so very rich," Mrs. Rosscott pursued calmly; "and you know the law of heredity is an established scientific fact now, so you could feel quite safe as to her nose skipping the next generation."

Jack was audibly amused.

"It's not anything to laugh over," his companion continued gravely. "It's something to ponder and pray over. If I were Maude I should be on my knees about it most of the time."

"Nothing can help her now," said Jack. "Her parents have been and gone and done it, as far as she's concerned, forever. Prayer won't change her nose, although age may broaden it still more."

"Don't you believe that nothing can help her now. A good-looking husband could help her lots. I've seen homelier girls than she go just everywhere—on account of their husbands, you know. That was where my philosophy came in."

"I'd quite forgotten your philosophy." He laughed again as he spoke. "I must apologize. Please tell me more about it."

She laughed, too.

"I'm going to. You see, I was lying there, looking out at the moon, and thinking how nice it would be for Maude to marry you."

"Did you consider me at all?" he interposed.

"How you interrupt!" she declared, in exasperation. "You never let me finish."

"I am dumb."

"Well, I thought how nice it would be for Maude to marry you. You'd have a baron for a papa-in-law, and an heiress to balance Aunt Mary with. If you went into consumption and had to retreat to Arizona for a term of years, the climate could not ruin her complexion as it would m—most people's. And she's so ready to have you that it's almost pathetic. I can't imagine anything more awful than to be as ready to marry a man who is'nt at all desirous of so doing, as Maude is of marrying you. But if you would only think about it. I thought and thought about it last night and the longer I thought the more it seemed like such a nice arrangement all around; and then—all of a sudden—do you know I began to wonder if I was philosopher enough to enjoy being matron-of-honor to Maude and really—"

"At the wedding I could have kissed you!" he exclaimed, and suddenly subsided at the look with which she withered his boldness.

"And really I wasn't altogether sure; and then, it occurred to me that nothing on the face of the earth would ever persuade you to marry Maude. And I saw my card castle go smashing down, and then I saw that I really am a philosopher, after all, for—for I didn't mind a bit!"

Jack threw his head back and roared.

"Oh," he said after a minute, "you are so refreshing. You ruffle me up just to give me the joy of smoothing me down, don't you?"

"I do what I can to amuse you," she said, demurely. "You are my father's guest and my brother's friend, and so I ought to—oughtn't I?"

"Yes," he said, "I have a two-fold claim on you if you look at it that way and some day I mean to go to work and unfold still another."

They had come to a delightful little nook where the trees sighed gently, "Sit down," and there seemed to be no adequate reason for refusing the invitation.

"Let's rest, I know you're tired," the young man said gently, and the next minute found his companion down upon the soft grass, her back against a twisted tree-root and her hands about her knees.

He threw himself down beside her and the hush and the song of mid-summer were all about them, filling the air, and their ears, and their hearts all at once.

Presently he took her hand up out of the grass where its fingers had wandered to hide themselves, and kissed it. She looked at him reprovingly when it was too late, and shook her head.

"Such a little one!" he said.

"I call it a pretty big one," she answered.

"I mean the hand—not the kiss," he said smiling.

"You really are sophisticated," she told him. "Only fancy if you had reversed those nouns!"

"I know," he said; "but I've kissed hands before. You see, I'm more talented than you think."

"Don't be silly," she said smiling. "I really am beginning to think very well of you. You don't want me to cease to, do you?"

"Why do women always say 'Don't be silly'?" he queried. "I wish I could find one who wanted to be very original, and so said, 'Do be silly', just for a change."

"Dear me, if women were to beg men to be silly what would happen?" Mrs. Rosscott exclaimed. "The majority are so very foolish without any special egging on."

"But it is so dreadfully time-worn—that one phrase."

"Oh, if it comes to originality," she answered, "men are not original, either. Whenever they lie down in the shade, they always begin to talk nonsense. You reflect a bit and see if that isn't invariably so."

"But nonsense is such fun to talk in the shade," he said, spreading her fingers out upon his own broad palm. "So many things are so next to heavenly in the shade."

"You ought not to hold my hand."

"I know it."

"I am astonished that you do not remember your Aunt Mary's teaching you better."

"She never forbade my holding your hand."

"Suppose anyone should come suddenly down the path?"

"They would see us and turn and go back."

"To tell everyone—"

"What?"

"A lie."

Jack laughed, folded her hand hard in his, and drew himself into a sitting posture beside her knee.

"Now, don't be silly," she said with earnest anxiety. "I won't have it. It's putting false ideas in your head, because I'm really only playing, you know."

"The shadow of love," he suggested.

"Quite so."

"And if—" He leaned quite near.

"Not by any means," she exclaimed, springing quickly to her feet. "Come—come! It's quite time that we were going back to the house."

"Why must we?" he remonstrated.

"You know why," she said. "It's time we were being sensible. When a man gets as near as you are, I prefer to be en promenade. And don't let us be foolish any longer, either. Let us be cool and worldly. How much money has your aunt, anyhow?"

Jack had risen, too.

"What impertinence!" he ejaculated.

"Not at all," she said. "Maude has so much money of her own that I ask in a wholly disinterested spirit."

"She's very rich," said Jack. "But if your spirit is so disinterested, what do you want to know for?"

"This is a world of chance, and the main chance in a woman's case is alimony; so it's always nice to know how to figure it."

"It's a slim chance for your cousin," said Jack. "Do tell her that I said so."

"No, I shan't," said she perversely. "I won't be a go-between for you and her. Besides, as to that alimony, there are more heiresses than Maude in our family."

"Yes," said he; "I know that. But I know, too, that there is one among them who need never figure on getting any alimony out of me. If I ever get the iron grasp of the law on that heiress, I can assure you that only her death or mine will ever loosen its fangs."

"How fierce you are!" said Mrs. Rosscott. "Why do you get so worked up?"

"Oh," he exclaimed, with something approaching a groan, "I don't mean to be—but I do care so much! And sometimes—" he caught her quickly in his arms, drew her within their strong embrace, and kissed her passionately upon the lips that had been tantalizing him for five interminable months.

He was almost frightened the next second by her stillness.

"Don't be angry," he pleaded.

"I'm not," she murmured, resting very quietly with her cheek against his heart. "But you'll have to marry me now. My other husband did, you know."

"Marry you!" he exclaimed. "Next week? To-morrow? This afternoon? You need only say when—"

"Oh, not for years and years," she said, interrupting him. "You mustn't dream of such a thing for years and years!"

"For years and years!" he cried in astonishment.

"That's what I said," she told him.

He released her in his surprise and stared hard at her. And then he seized her again and kissed her soundly.

"You don't mean it!" he declared.

"I do mean it!" she declared.

And then she shook her head in a very sweet but painfully resolute manner.

"I won't be called a cradle-robber," she said, firmly; and at that her companion swore mildly but fervently.

"You're so young," she said further; "and not a bit settled," she added.

"But you're young, too," he reminded her.

"I'm older than you are," she said.

"I suppose that you aren't any more settled than I am, and that's why you hesitate," he said grimly.

"Now that's unworthy of you," she cried; "and I have a good mind—"

But the direful words were never spoken, for she was in his arms again—close in his arms; and, as he kissed her with a delicious sensation that it was all too good to be true, he whispered, laughing:

"I always meant to lord it over my wife, so I'll begin by saying: 'Have it your own way, as long as I have you.'"

Mrs. Rosscott laid her cheek back against his coat lapel, and looked up into his eyes with the sweetest smile that even he had ever seen upon even her face.

"It's a bargain," she murmured.



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - THE PEACE AND QUIET OF THE COUNTRY

Along in the beginning of the fall Aunt Mary began suddenly to grow very feeble indeed. After the first week or two it became apparent that she would have to be quiet and very prudent for some time, and it was when this information was imparted to her that the family discovered that she had been intending to go to New York for the Horse-Show.

"She's awful mad," Lucinda said to Joshua. "The doctor says she'll have to stay in bed."

"She won't stay in bed long," said Joshua.

"The doctor says if she don't stay in bed she'll die," said Lucinda.

"She won't die," said Joshua.

Lucinda looked at Joshua and felt a keen desire to throw her flatiron at him. The world always thinks that the Lucindas have no feelings; the world never knows how near the flatirons come to the Joshuas often and often.

Arethusa came for two days and looked the situation well over.

"I think I won't stay," she said to Lucinda, "but you must write me twice a week and I'll write the others."

Then Arethusa departed and Lucinda remained alone to superintend things and be superintended by Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary's superintendence waxed extremely vigorous almost at once. She had out her writing desk, and wrote Jack a letter, as a consequence of which everything published in New York was mailed to his aunt as soon as it was off the presses. Lucinda was set reading aloud and, except when the mail came, was hardly allowed to halt for food and sleep.

"My heavens above," said the slave to Joshua, "it don't seem like I can live with her!"

"You'll live with her," said Joshua.

"It's more as flesh and blood can bear."

"Flesh and blood can bear a good deal more'n you think for," said Joshua, and then he delivered up two letters and drove off toward the barn.

"If those are letters," said Aunt Mary from her pillow the instant she heard the front door close, "I'd like 'em. I'm a great believer in readin' my own mail, an' another time, Lucinda, I'll thank you to bring it as soon as you get it an' not stand out on the porch hollyhockin' with Joshua for half an hour while I wait."

Lucinda delivered up the letters without demanding what species of conversational significance her mistress attached to the phrase, "holly-hocking."

Aunt Mary turned the letters through eagerly.

"My lands alive!" she said suddenly, "if here isn't one from Mitchell,—the dear boy. Well, I never did!—Lucinda, open the blinds to the other window, too—so I—can—see to—" her voice died away,—she was too deep in the letter to recollect what she was saying.

Mitchell wrote:

MY DEAR MISS WATKINS:—

We are sitting in a row with ashes on the heads of our cigarettes mourning, mourning, mourning, because we have had the news that you are ill. As usual it is up to me to express our feelings, so I have decided to mail them and the others agree to pay for the ink.

I wish to remark at once that we did not sleep any last night. Jack told us at dinner, and we spent the evening making a melancholy tour of places where we had been with you. If you had only been with us! The roof gardens are particularly desolate without you. The whole of the city seems to realize it. The watering carts weep from dawn to dark. All the lamp-posts are wearing black. It is sad at one extreme and sadder at the other.

You must brace up. If you can't do that try a belt. Life is too short to spend in bed. My motto has always been "Spend freely everywhere else." At present I recommend anything calculated to mend you. I may in all modesty mention that just before Christmas I shall be traveling north and shall then adore to stop and cheer you up a bit if you invite me. I have made it an invariable rule, however, not to stay over night anywhere when I am not invited, so I hope you will consider my feelings and send me an invitation.

My eyes fill as I think what it will be to sit beside you and recall dear old New York. It will be the next best thing to being run over by an automobile, won't it?

Yours, with fondest recollections,

HERBERT KENDRICK MITCHELL.

Aunt Mary laid the letter down.

"Lucinda," she said in a curiously veiled tone, "give me a handkerchief—a big one. As big a one as I've got."

Lucinda did as requested.

"Now, go away," said Aunt Mary.

Lucinda went away. She went straight to Joshua.

"She's had a letter an' read it an' it's made her cry," she said.

"That's better'n if it made her mad," said Joshua, who was warming his hands at the stove.

"I ain't sure that it won't make her mad later," said Lucinda. "Say, but she is a Tartar since she came back. Seems some days's if I couldn't live."

"You'll live," said Joshua, and, as his hands were now well-warmed, he went out again.

After a while Aunt Mary's bell jangled violently and Lucinda had to hurry back.

"Lucinda, did the doctor say anythin' to you about how long he thought I might be sick?"

"Yes, he did."

"What did he say? I want to know jus' what he said. Speak up!"

"He said he didn't have no idea how long you'd be sick."

Aunt Mary threw a look at Lucinda that ought to have annihilated her.

"I want to see Jack," she said. "Bring my writin' desk. Right off. Quick."

She wrote to Jack, and he came up and spent the next Sunday with her, cheering her mightily.

"I wish the others could have come, too," she said once an hour all through his visit. Mitchell's letter seemed to have bred a tremendous longing within her.

"They'll come later," said Jack, with hearty good-will. "They all want to come."

"I don't know how we could ever have any fun up here though," said his aunt sadly. "My heavens alive, Jack,—but this is an awful place to live in. And to think that I lived to be seventy before I found it out."

Jack took her hand and kissed it. He did sympathize, even if he was only twenty-two and longing unutterably to be somewhere else and kissing someone else at that very minute.

"Mitchell wrote me a letter," continued Aunt Mary. "He said he was comin'. Well, dear me, he can eat mince pie and drive with Joshua when he goes for the mail, but I don't know what else I can do with him. Oh, if I'd only been born in the city!"

Jack kissed her hand again. He didn't know what to say. Aunt Mary's lot seemed to border upon the tragic just then and there.

The next day he returned to town and Lucinda came on duty again. She soon found that the nephew's visit had rendered the aunt harder than ever to get along with.

"I'm goin' to town jus''s soon as ever I feel well enough," she declared aggressively on more than one occasion. "An' nex' time I go I'm goin' to stay jus''s long as ever I'm havin' a good time. Now, don't contradict me, Lucinda, because it's your place to hold your tongue. I'm a great believer in your holding your tongue, Lucinda."

Lucinda, who certainly never felt the slightest inclination toward contradiction, held her tongue, and the poor, unhappy one twisted about in bed, and bemoaned the quietude of her environment by the hour at a time.

"Did you say we had a calf?" she asked suddenly one day. "Well, why don't you answer? When I ask a question I expect an answer. Didn't you say we had a calf?"

Lucinda nodded.

"Well, I want Joshua to take that calf to the blacksmith and have him shod behind an' before right off. To-day—this minute."

"You want the calf shod!" cried Lucinda, suddenly alarmed by the fear lest her mistress had gone light-headed.

Aunt Mary glared in a way that showed that she was far from being out of her usual mind.

"If I said shod, I guess I meant shod," she said, icily. "I do sometimes mean what I say. Pretty often—as a usual thing."

Lucinda stood at the foot of the bed, petrified and paralyzed.

Then the invalid sat up a little and showed some mercy on her servant's very evident fright.

"I want the calf shod," she explained, "so's Joshua can run up an' down the porch with him."

So far from ameliorating Lucinda's condition, this explanation rendered it visibly worse. Aunt Mary contemplated her in silence for a few seconds, and she suddenly cried out, in a tone that was full of pathos:

"I feel like maybe—maybe—the calf'll make me think it's horses' feet on the pavement."

Lucinda rushed from the room.

"She wants the calf shod!" she cried, bursting in upon Joshua, who was piling wood.

For once in his life Joshua was shaken out of his usual placidity.

"She wants the calf shod!" he repeated blankly.

"Yes."

"You can't shoe a calf."

"But she wants it done."

Joshua regained his self-control.

"Oh, well," he said, turning to go on with his work, "the calf's gone to the butcher, anyhow. Tell her so."

Lucinda went back to Aunt Mary.

"The calf's gone to the butcher," she yelled.

Aunt Mary frowned heavily.

"Then you go an' get a lamp and turn it up too high an' leave it," she said,—"the smell'll make me think of automobiles."

Lucinda was appalled. As a practical housekeeper she felt that here was a proposition which she could not face.

"Well, ain't you goin'?" Aunt Mary asked tartly. "Of course if you ain't intendin' to go I'd be glad to know it; 'n while you're gone, Lucinda, I wish you'd get me the handle to the ice-cream freezer an' lay it where I can see it; it'll help me believe in the smell."

Lucinda went away and brought the handle, but she did not light the lamp. The Fates were good to her, though, for Aunt Mary forgot the lamp in her disgust over the appearance of the handle.

"Take it away," she said sharply. "Anybody'd know it wasn't an automobile crank. I don't want to look like a fool! Well, why ain't you takin' it away, Lucinda?"

Lucinda took the crank back to the freezer; but as the days passed on, the situation grew worse. Aunt Mary slept more and more, and awoke to an ever-increasing ratio of belligerency.

Before long Lucinda's third cousin demanded her assistance in "moving," and there was nothing for poor Arethusa to do but to take up the burden, now become a fearfully heavy one.

Aunt Mary was getting to that period in life when the nearer the relative the greater the dislike, so that when her niece arrived the welcome which awaited her was even less cordial than ever.

"Did you bring a trunk?" she asked.

"A small one," replied the visitor.

"That's something to be grateful for," said the aunt. "If I'd invited you to visit me, of course I'd feel differently about things."

Arethusa accepted this as she accepted all things, unpacked, saw Lucinda off, assumed charge of the house, and then dragged a rocking chair to her aunt's bedside and unfolded her sewing. Ere she had threaded her needle Aunt Mary was sound asleep, and so her niece sewed placidly for an hour or more, until, like lightning out of a clear sky:

"Arethusa!"

The owner of the name started—but answered immediately:

"Yes, Aunt Mary."

"When I die I want to be buried from a roof garden! Don't you forget! You'd better go an' write it down. Go now—go this minute!"

Arethusa shook as if with the discharge of a contiguous field battery. She had not had Lucinda's gradual breaking-in to her aunt's new trains of thought.

"Aunt Mary," she said feebly at last.

Aunt Mary saw her lips moving; she sat up in bed and her eyes flashed cinders.

"Well, ain't you goin'?" she asked wrathfully. "When I say do a thing, can't it be done? I declare it's bad enough to live with a pack of idiots without havin' 'em, one an' all, act as if I was the idiot!"

Arethusa laid aside her work and rose to quit the room. She returned five minutes later with pen and ink, but Aunt Mary was now off on another tack.

"I want a bulldog!" she cried imperatively.

"A bulldog!" shrieked her niece, nearly dropping what she held in her hands. "What do you want a bulldog for?"

"Not a bullfrog!" the old lady corrected; "a bulldog. Oh, I do get so sick of your stupidity, Arethusa," she said. "What should I or any one else want of a bullfrog?"

Arethusa sighed, and the sigh was apparent.

"I'd sigh if I was you," said her aunt. "I certainly would. If I was you, Arethusa, I'd certainly feel that I had cause to sigh;" and with that she sat up and gave her pillow a punch that was full of the direst sort of suggestion.

Arethusa did not gainsay the truth of the sighing proposition. It was too apparent.

The next day Aunt Mary slept until noon, and then opened her eyes and simultaneously declared:

"Next summer I'm goin' to have an automobile!"

Then she looked about and saw that she had addressed the air, which made her more mad than ever. She rang her bell violently, and Arethusa left the lunch table so hastily that she reached the bedroom half-choked.

"Next summer I'm goin' to have an automobile," said the old lady angrily. "Now, get me some breakfast."

Her niece went out quickly, and a maid was sent in with tea and toast and eggs at once. Their effect was to brace the invalid up and make the lot of those about her yet more wearing.

"I shall run it myself," she vowed, when Arethusa returned; "an' I bet they clear out when they see me comin'."

It did seem highly probable.

"I don't know how I can live if I don't get away from here soon," she declared a few minutes later. "You don't appreciate what life is, Arethusa. Seems like I'll go mad with wantin' to be somewhere else. I can see Jack gets his disposition straight from me."

There was a sigh and a pause.

"I shall die," Aunt Mary then declared with violence, "if I don't have a change. Arethusa, you've got to write to Jack, and tell him to get me Granite."

"Granite!" screamed the niece in surprise.

"Yes, Granite. She was a maid I had in New York. I want her to come here. She must come. Tell him to offer her anything, and send her C.O.D. If I can have Granite, maybe I'll feel some better. You write Jack."

"I'll write to-night," shrieked Arethusa.

"No, you won't," said Aunt Mary; "you'll get the ink and write right now. Because I've been meeker'n Moses all my life is no reason why I sh'd be willin' to be downtrodden clear to the end. Folks around me'd better begin to look sharp an' step lively from now on."

Arethusa went to the desk at once and wrote:

DEAR JACK:

Aunt Mary wants the maid that she had when she was in New York. For the love of Heaven, if the girl is procurable, do get her. Hire her if you can and kidnap her if you can't. Lucinda has played her usual trick on me and walked off just when she felt like it. I never saw Aunt Mary in anything like the state of mind that she is, but I know one thing—if you cannot send the maid, there'll be an end of me.

Your loving sister,

ARETHUSA.

Jack was much perturbed upon receipt of this letter. He whistled a little and frowned a great deal. But at last he decided to be frank and tell the truth to Mrs. Rosscott. To that end he wrote her a lengthy note. After two preliminary pages so personal that it would not be right to print them for public reading, he continued thus:

I've had a letter from my sister, who is with Aunt Mary at present. She says that Aunt Mary is not at all well and declares that she must have Janice. What under the sun am I to answer? Shall I say that the girl has gone to France? I'm willing to swear anything rather that put you to one second's inconvenience. You know that, don't you? etc., etc., etc. [just here the letter abruptly became personal again].

Jack thought that he knew his fiancee well, but he was totally unprepared for such an exhibition of sweet ness as was testified to by the letter which he received in return.

It's first six pages were even more personal than his own (being more feminine) and then came this paragraph:

Janice is going to your aunt by to-night's train. Now, don't say a word! It is nothing—nothing—absolutely nothing. Don't you know that I am too utterly happy to be able to do anything for anyone that you—etc., etc., etc.

Jack seized his hat and hurried to where his lady-love was just then residing. But Janice had gone!



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - "GRANITE"

Joshua was despatched to drive through mud and rain to bring Aunt Mary's solace from the station.

Aunt Mary had herself propped up in bed to be ready for the return before Billy's feet had ceased to cry splash on the road outside of the gate. Her eagerness tinged her pallor pink. It was as if the prospect of seeing Janice gave her some of that flood of vitality which always seems to ebb and flow so richly in the life of a metropolis.

"My gracious heavens, Lucinda" (for Lucinda was back now), she said joyfully, "to think that I needn't look at you for a week if I don't want to! You haven't any idea how tired I am of looking at you, Lucinda. If you looked like anything it would be different. But you don't."

Lucinda rocked placidly; hers was what is called an "even disposition." If it hadn't been, she might have led an entirely different life—in fact, she would most certainly have lived somewhere else, for she couldn't possibly have lived with Aunt Mary.

The hour that ensued after Joshua's departure was so long that it resulted in a nap for the invalid, and Lucinda had to wake her by slamming the closet door when the arrival turned in at the gate.

"Has he got her?" Aunt Mary cried breathlessly. "Has he got someone with him? Run, Lucinda, an' bring her in. She needn't wipe her feet, tell her; you can brush the hall afterwards. Well, why ain't you hurryin'?"

Lucinda was hurrying, her curiosity being as potent as the commands of her mistress, and five seconds later Janice appeared in the door with her predecessor just behind her—a striking contrast.

"You dear blessed Granite!" cried the old lady, stretching out her hands in a sort of ecstasy. "Oh, my! but I'm glad to see you! Come right straight here. No, shut the door first. Lucinda, you go and do 'most anything. An' how is the city?"

Janice came to the bedside and dropped on her knees there, taking Aunt Mary's withered hand close in both of her own.

"You didn't shut the door," the old lady whispered hoarsely. "I wish you would—an' bolt it, too. An' then come straight back to me."

Janice closed and bolted the door, and returned to the bedside. Aunt Mary drew her down close to her, and her voice and eyes were hungry, indeed. For a little she looked eagerly upon what she had so craved to possess again, and then she suddenly asked:

"Granite, have you got any cigarettes with you?"

The maid started a little.

"Do you smoke now?" she asked, with interest.

"No," said Aunt Mary sadly, "an' that's one more of my awful troubles. You see I'm jus' achin' to smell smoke, an' Joshua promised his mother the night before he was twenty-one. You don't know nothin' about how terrible I feel. I'm empty somewhere jus' all the time. Don't you believe't you could get some cigarettes an' smoke 'em right close to me, an' let me lay here, an' be so happy while I smell. I'll have a good doctor for you, if you're sick from it."

The maid reflected; then she nodded.

"I'll write to town," she cried, in her high, clear tones. "What brand do you like best?"

"Mitchell's," said Aunt Mary. "But you can't get those because he made 'em himself an' sealed 'em with a lick. Oh!" she sighed, with the accent of a starving Sybarite, "I do wish I could see him do it again! Do you know," she added suddenly, "he wrote me a letter and he's goin' to come here."

"When?" asked Janice.

"After a while. But you must take off your things. That's your room in there," pointing toward a half-open door at the side. "I wanted you as close as I could get you. My, but I've wanted you! I can't tell you how much. But a good deal—a lot—awfully."

Janice went into the room that was to be hers, and hung up her hat and cloak.

When she returned Aunt Mary was looking a hundred per cent, improved already.

"Can you hum 'Hiawatha'?" she asked immediately. "Granite, I must have suthin' to amuse me an' make me feel good. Can you hum 'Hiawatha' an' can you do that kind of 'sh—sh—sh—'that everybody does all together at the end, you know?"

Janice smiled pleasantly, and placing herself in the closest possible proximity with the ear trumpet, at once rendered the desired morceau in a style which would have done credit to a soloist in a cafe chantant.

Aunt Mary's lips wreathed in seraphic bliss.

"My!" she said. "I feel just as if I was back eatin' crabs' legs and tails again. No one'll ever know how I've missed city life this winter but—well, you saw Lucinda!"

The glance that accompanied the speech was mysterious but significant. Janice nodded sympathetically.

"I hope you brought a trunk. I ain't a bit sure when I'll be able to let you go," pursued the old lady. "I don't believe I can let you go until I go, too. I've most died here alone."

"I brought a trunk," Janice cried into the ear trumpet.

"I'm glad," said Aunt Mary. She paused, and her eyes grew wistful.

"Granite," she asked, "do you think you could manage to do a skirt dance on the footboard? I'm 'most wild to see some lace shake."

Janice looked doubtfully at the footboard. It was wide for a footboard, but narrow—too narrow—for a skirt dance.

"But I can do one on the floor," she cried.

Aunt Mary's features became suffused with heavenly joy.

"Oh, Granite!" she murmured, in accents of greatest anticipation.

The maid stood up, and, going off as far as the limits of the spacious bedroom would allow, executed a most fetching and dainty pas seul to a tune of her own humming.

"Give me suthin' to pound with!" cried her enthusiastic audience. "Oh, Granite, I ain't been so happy since I was home! Whatever you want you can have, only don't ever leave me alone with Lucinda again."

Janice was catching her tired breath, but she answered with a smile.

"Can't you get my Sunday umbrella out of the closet now an' do a parasol dance?" the insatiate demanded; "one of those where you shoot it open an' shut when people ain't expectin'."

The maid went to the closet and brought out the Sunday umbrella; but its shiny black silk did not appear to inspire any fluffy maneuvres, so she utilized it in the guise of a broadsword and did something that savored of the Highlands, and seemed to rebel bitterly at the length of her skirt. Aunt Mary writhed around in bliss—utter and intense.

"I feel like I was livin' again," she said, heaving a great sigh of content. "I tell you I've suffered enough, since I came back, to know what it is to have some fun again. Now, Granite, I'll tell you what we'll do," when the girl sat down to rest; "you write for those cigarettes while I take a little nap and afterwards we'll get the Universal Knowledge book and learn how to play poker. You don't know how to play poker, do you?"

"A little," cried the maid.

"Well, I want to learn how," said the old lady, "an' we'll learn when—when I wake up."

Janice nodded assent.

"Excuse me shuttin' my eyes," said Aunt Mary—and she was asleep in two minutes.



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - "GRANITE" - CONTINUED.

Mary and Arethusa—Aunt Mary's two nieces—were not uncommonly mercenary; but about three weeks after the new arrival they became seriously troubled over the ascendancy that she appeared to be gaining over the mind of their aunt. Lucinda's duties had included for many years the writing of a weekly letter which contained formal advices of the general state of affairs, and after Janice's establishment, these letters became so provocative of gradually increasing alarm that first Mary, and then Arethusa thought it advisable to make the journey for the purpose of investigating the affair personally. They found the new maid apparently devoid of evil intent, but certainly fast becoming absolutely indispensable to the daily happiness of their influential relative. Mary feared that a codicil for five thousand dollars would be the result; but Arethusa felt, with a sinking heart, that there was another naught going on to the sum, and that, unless the tide turned, the end might not be even then.

Aunt Mary was so cool that neither niece stayed long, and Lucinda's letters had to be looked to for the progress of events. Lucinda's letters were frequent and not at all reassuring. After the sisters had talked them over, they sent them on to Jack.

She [thus Lucinda invariably began] is the same as ever. It's cross the heart and bend the knee, an' then you ain't down far enough to suit her. But she's gettin' so afraid she'll go that she's wax in her hands. It would scare you. She won't let her out of her sight a minute. I must say that whatever she's giving her, she certainly is earning the money, for she works her harder every day. The poor thing is hopping about, or singing, or playing cards, from dawn to dark, and unless it's a provision in her will I can't see what would pay her enough for working so. Lord knows I considered I earned my wages without skipping around with my legs crossed like she does, and she has no end of patience too, even if she won't ever let her take a walk. She's getting as pale as she is herself. Seems like something should be done.

Respectfully,

L. COOKE.

Three days later Lucinda wrote again:

She does seem to be getting worse and worse. She makes her sleep on a sofa beside her, and she begins to look dreadfully worn out. I do believe she'll kill her, before she dies herself. I told her so to-day, but she only smiled. It's funny, but I like her even if I am bolted out all the time. I ain't jealous, and I'm glad of the rest. I should think her throat would split with talking so much, but she certainly does hear her better than anyone else. I think something must be done, though. She's getting as crazy as she is herself. They play cards and call each other "aunty" for two hours at a stretch some days.

Respectfully,

L. COOKE.

At the end of the week Lucinda wrote again:

I think if you don't come, she will surely die. She is very feeble herself, but that don't keep her from wearing her to skin and bone. She keeps her doing tricks from morning to night. Every minute that she is awake she keeps her jumping. It's a mercy she sleeps so much, or she wouldn't get any sleep at all. I can't do nothing, but I can see something has got to be done. She's killing her, and she's getting where she don't care for nobody but her, and if she's to be kept in trim to keep on amusing her she'll have to have some rest pretty quick.

Respectfully,

L. COOKE.

If the sisters were perturbed by the general trend of these epistles, Jack was half wild over the situation. He swore vigorously and he tramped up and down his room nights until the people underneath put it in their prayers that his woes might suggest suicide as speedily as possible. In vain he wrote to Mrs. Rosscott to restore Janice to her proper place in town; Mrs. Rosscott answered that as long as Aunt Mary desired Janice at her side, at her side Janice should stay. Jack knew his lady well enough to know that she would keep her word, and although he longed to assert his authority he was man enough to feel that he had better wait now and settle the debt after marriage.

Nevertheless the whole affair was unbearably vexatious and at last he felt that he could endure it no longer.

"I'm a fool," he said, in a spirit of annoyance that came so close to anger that it led to an utter loss of patience. "I'll take the train for Aunt Mary's to-day, and straighten out that mess in short order."

It was Saturday, and he arranged to leave by the noon train. He laid in a heavy supply of bribes for his aged relative and of reading matter for himself, and went to the station with a heart divided 'twixt many different emotions. It was an unconscionably long ride, but he did get there safely about ten o'clock.

It was a pleasant night—not too cold—even suggestive of some lingering Indian summer intentions on the part of Jack's namesake. The young man thought that he would walk out to his childhood's home, and his decision was aided by the discovery that there was no other way to get there.

So he took his suit-case in his hand and set off with a stride that covered the intervening miles in short order and brought him, almost before he knew it, to where he could see Lucinda's light in the dining-room and her pug-nosed profile outlined upon the drawn shade. Everyone else was evidently abed, and as he looked, she, too, arose and took up the lamp. He hurried his steps so that she might let him in before she went upstairs, but in the same instant the light went out and with its withdrawal he perceived a little figure sitting alone upon the doorstep.

His heart gave a tremendous leap—but not with fright—and he made three rapid steps and spoke a name.

She lifted up her head. Of course it was Janice, and although she had been weeping, her eyes were as beautiful as ever.

"Oh, Jack!" she exclaimed, and happy the man who hears his name called in such a tone—even if it be only for once in the whole course of his existence.

He pitched his suit-case down upon the grass and took the maid in his arms.

What did anything matter; they both were lonely and both needed comforting.

He kissed her not once but twenty times,—not twenty times but a hundred.

"It's abominable you're being here," he said at last.

"I am very, very tired," she confessed.

"And you'll go back to the city when I go?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, doubtfully. "I don't know whether she'll let me."

Jack laughed.

"To-morrow I will beard Aunt Mary in her den," he declared; "now let's go in and—and—"

The hundred and first!



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - TWO ARE COMPANY

To the large square room where he had slept (on and off) during a goodly portion of his boyhood life, Jack went to repose from his journey, there to meditate the situation which he had come to comfort, and to try and devise a way to better its existing circumstances.

It was a pleasant room, one window looking down the driveway, and the other leading forth to a square balcony that topped the little porch of the side entrance. There were lambrequins of dark blue with fringe that always caught in the shutters, and a bedroom suite of mahogany that had come down from the original John Watkins's aunt, and had been polished by her descendants so faithfully that its various surfaces shone like mirrors. Over the bed hung a tent drapery of chintz; over the washstand hung a crayon done by Arethusa in her infancy—the same representing a lady engaged in the pleasant and useful occupation of spinning wheat with a hand composed of five fingers, and no thumb. In the corner stood a cheval-glass which Jack had seen shrink steadily for years until now it could no longer reflect his shoulders unless he retired back for some two yards or more. There was a delectable closet to the room, all painted white inside, with shelves and cupboards and little bins for shoes and waste paper and soiled clothes.

Oh! it was really an altogether delightful place in which to abide, and the pity was that its owner had spent so little time therein of late years.

To-night—returning to the scene of many childish and boyish meditations—Jack placed his lamp upon the nightstand at the head of the bed and sat himself down on a chair near by.

It was late—quite midnight—for he and Aunt Mary's new maid had talked long and freely ere they separated at last. From his room he could hear the little faint sounds below stairs, that told of her final preparations for Lucinda's morning eye, and he rested quiet until all else was quiet and then leaned back upon the chair's hind legs and, tipping slowly to and fro in that position, tried to see just what he had better do the first thing on the following day.



"'Yesterday I played poker until I didn't know a blue chip from a white one.'"

It was a riddle with a vengeance. It is so easy to say "I'll cut that Gordian knot!" and then pack one's tooth-brush and start off unknotting, but it is quite another matter when one comes face to face with the problem and is met by the "buts" of those who have previously been essaying to disentangle it.

"She won't let me go," Mrs. Rosscott had declared, "she won't consider it for a minute."

"But she must," Jack had declared on his side. "My dearest, you can't stay and play maid to Aunt Mary indefinitely, and you know that as well as I do."

"Yes, I know that," the whilom Janice then murmured. "It's getting to be an awful question. They want me to come home for Thanksgiving. They think that I've been at the rest-cure long enough."

Jack had laughed a bit just there, and then he suddenly ceased laughing and frowned a good deal instead.

"You were crying when I came," he said. "The truth is you are working yourself to death and getting completely used up."

"It is wearing, I must confess," she answered. "Yesterday I played poker until I didn't know a blue chip from a white one, and she won the whole pot with two little bits of pairs while I was drawing to a king. I begin to fear that my mind will give way. And yet, I really don't see how to stop. She is so sick and tired of life here and she isn't strong enough to go to town."

"I know a very short way to put an end to everything," said Jack. "I see two ways in fact,—one is to tell her the truth."

"Oh, don't do that," cried his fiancee affrightedly. "The shock would kill her outright."

"The other way,—" said Jack slowly, "would be for me to marry you and let her think that you are Janice in good earnest."

"Oh, that wouldn't do at all," said the pretty widow. "In the first place she would go crazy at the idea of her darling nephew's marrying her maid,—and in the second place—"

"Well,—in the second place?"

"I wouldn't marry you,—I said I wouldn't and I won't. You're too young."

"But you've promised to marry me some day."

"Yes, I know—but not till—not till—"

"Not till when?"

"I haven't just decided," said Mrs. Rosscott, airily. "Not for a good while, not until you seem to require marrying at my hands."

"I never shall require marrying at anyone else's hands," the lover vowed, "but if you are so set about it as all that comes to, I shall not cut up rough for a while. Aunt Mary is the main question just now—not you."

"I know," said his lady in anything but a jealous tone, "and as she is the question, what are we to do?"

"You will go to bed," he said, kissing her, "and I will go to think."

"Can you see any way?" she asked anxiously.

Then he put his hands on either side of her face and turned it up to his own.

"You plotted once and overthrew my aunt," he said. "It's my turn now."

"Are you going to plot?"

"I'm going to try."

"I'll pray for your success," she whispered.

"Pray for me," he answered, and shortly after they had achieved the feat of saying good-night and parting once more, and the result of it all had been that Jack found himself tipping back and forth on the small chair, in the big room, at half-past midnight, puzzled, perturbed, and very much perplexed as to what to do first when the next morning should have become a settled fact. He was not used to conspiring, and being only a man, he had not those curious instinctive gifts of inspiration and luminous conception which fairly radiate around the brain of clever womankind.

It was some time—a very long time indeed—before any light stole in upon his Stygian darkness, and then, when the light did come, it came in skyrocket guise, and had its share of cons attached to its very evident pros.

"But I don't care," he declared viciously, as he rose and began to undress; "something's got to be done,—some chances have got to be taken,—as well that as anything else. Perhaps better—very likely better."

Then he laughed over his unconscious imitation of his aunt's phraseology, and made short work of finishing his disrobing and getting to bed.

It was when Lucinda crept forth to begin to unlock the house at 6.30 upon the morning after, that the fact of the nephew's arrival was first known to anyone except Janice.

Lucinda saw the coat and hat,—recognized the initial on the handkerchief in the inside pocket, threw out her arms and gave a faint squeak in utter bewilderment, and then tore off at once to the barn to tell Joshua.

She found Joshua milking the cow.

"What do you think!" she panted briefly, with wide-open eyes and uplifted hands; "Joshua Whittlesey, what do you think?"

"I don't think nothin'," said Joshua. "I'm milkin'."

"What would you say if I told you as he was come."

"I'd say he was here."

"Well, he is. He must 'a' come last night, an' Lord only knows how he ever got in, for nothing was left open an' yet he's there."

Joshua made no comment.

"I wonder what he came for?"

Joshua made no comment.

"I wonder how long he'll stay?"

Still Joshua made no comment.

"Joshua Whittlesey, before you get your breakfast, you're the meanest man I ever saw, and I'll swear to that anywhere."

"Why don't you get me my breakfast then?" said Joshua calmly; and the effect of his speech and his demeanor was to cause Lucinda to turn and leave him at once—too outraged to address another word to him.

Aunt Mary herself did not awake until ten o'clock. She rang her bell vigorously then and Janice flew to its answering.

"I dreamed of Jack," said the old lady, looking up with a smile. "I dreamed we was each ridin' on camels in a merry-go-round."

Janice smiled too, and then set briskly to work to put the room in order and arrange its occupant for the day.

"Did there come any mail?" Aunt Mary inquired, when her coiffure was made and her dressing-gown adjusted. "I feel jus' like I might hear from Jack. Seems as if I sort of can't think of anythin' but him."

"I'll go and see," said Janice pleasantly, and she went to the dining room where the Reformed Prodigal sat reading the newspaper with his feet on the table—an action which convinced Lucinda that he had not reformed so very much after all.

"Suppose you go to her—instead of me," suggested the maid, pausing before the reader and usurping all the attention to which the paper should have laid claim.

"Suppose I do," said Jack, jumping up, "and suppose you stay away and let me try what I can accomplish single-handed."

"Only—" began Janice—and then she stopped and lifted a warning finger.

Jack listened and a stealthy creak betrayed Lucinda's proximity somewhere in the vicinity.

It was plain to be seen that there were many issues to be kept in mind, and the young man grit his teeth because he didn't dare embrace his betrothed, and then walked away in the direction of Aunt Mary's room.

If she was glad to see him! One would have supposed that ten years and two oceans had elapsed since their last meeting the month before.

She fairly screamed with joy.

"Jack!—You dear, dear, dear boy! Well, if I ever did!—When did you come?"

He was by the bed hugging her. "And how are they all? How is the city? Oh, Jack, if I could only go back with you this time!"

"Never mind, Aunt Mary; you'll be coming soon—in the spring, you know."

Aunt Mary sank back on the pillows.

"Jack," she said, "if I have to wait for spring, I shall die. I ain't strong enough to be able to bear livin' in the country much longer. I've pretty much made up my mind to buy a house in town and just keep this place so's to have somewhere to put Lucinda."

"Do you think you'd be happy in town, Aunt Mary?" Jack yelled; "I mean if you lived there right along?"

"I don't see how I could be anythin' else. I don't see how anyone could be anythin' else. I want a nice house with a criss-cross iron gate in front of it an' an automobile. An'—I don't want you to say nothin' about this to her jus' yet—but I'm goin' to keep Granite to look after everythin' for me. I don't ever mean to let Granite go again. Never. Not for one hour."

Jack smiled. He felt as if Fate was playing into his hands.

"I want you to live with me," Aunt Mary continued, "an' I want the house big enough so's Clover an' Mitchell an' Burnett can come whenever they feel like it and stay as long as they like. I don't want any house except for us all together. Oh, my! Seems like I can't hardly wait!"

She leaned back and shut her eyes in a sort of impatient ecstasy of joys been and to be.

Jack reached forward to get a cigarette from the box on the table at the bedside.

"Do you smoke now, Aunt Mary?" he inquired, as he took a match.

"No, Granite does."

"Janice does!" he repeated, quickly knitting his brows.

"Yes, she does it for me—I'm so happy smellin' the smell. They made her a little sick at first but she took camphor and now she don't mind. Not much—not any."

Jack arose and walked about the room. The idea of his darling sickening herself to provide smoke for Aunt Mary braced him afresh to the conflict.

"What do you do all day?" he asked, presently.

"Well, we do most everythin'. When Lucinda's out she does Lucinda for me an' when Lucinda's in she does Joshua. It's about as amusin' as anythin' you ever saw to see her do Lucinda. I never found Lucinda amusin', Lord knows, but I like to see Granite do her. An' we play cards, an' she dances, an'—"

"Aunt Mary," said Jack abruptly, "do you know the people who had Janice want her back again?"

"I didn't quite catch that," said his aunt, "but you needn't bother to repeat it because I ain't never goin' to let her go. Not never."

Jack came back and sat down beside the bed, and took her hand.

"Aunt Mary," he said in a pleading shriek, "don't you see how pale and thin she's getting?"

"No, I don't," said his aunt, turning her head away, "an' it's no use tellin' me such things because it's about my nap-time and I've always been a great believer in takin' my nap when it's my nap-time. As a general thing."

Jack sighed and watched her close her eyes and go instantly to sleep. Janice came in a few minutes later.

"No—no," she whispered hastily, as he came toward her,—"you mustn't—you mustn't. I don't believe that she really is asleep and even if she is, Lucinda is everywhere."

"Where can we go?" Jack asked in despair. "It's out of all reason to expect me to behave all the time."

"We can't go anywhere," said Mrs. Rosscott; "we must resign ourselves. I've learned that it's the only way. Dear me, when I think how long I've been resigned it certainly seems to me that you might do a little in the same line."

"Well, but I haven't learned to resign myself," said her lover, "and what is more, I positively decline to learn to resign myself. You should do the same, too. Where is the sense in humoring her so? I wouldn't if I were you."

Janice lifted up her lovely eyes.

"Oh, yes, you would," she said simply. "If somebody's future happiness depended upon her you would humor her just as much as I do."

Jack was touched.

"You are an angel of unselfishness," he exclaimed, warmly, "and I don't deserve such devotion."

"Oh, don't be too grateful," she replied, dimpling. "The person to whose future happiness I referred was myself."

They both laughed softly at that—softly and mutually.

"Nevertheless," Jack went on after a minute, "if to all the other puzzles is to be added the torture of being unable to see you or speak freely to you, I think the hour for action has arrived."

"For action!" she cried; "what are you thinking of doing?"

"This," he said, and straightway took her into his arms and kissed her as he had kissed her on the night before.

"Oh, if Lucinda has heard or your aunt has seen!" poor Janice cried, extricating herself and setting her cap to rights with a species of fluttered haste that led Jack to wonder suddenly why men didn't fall in love with maids even oftener than they do. "I do believe that you have gone and done it this time."

"Nobody heard and nobody saw," he assured her, but he didn't at all mean what he said, for his prayers were fervent that his kiss had been public property.

And such was the fact.

Lucinda bounced in on Joshua with a bounce that turned the can of harness polish upside down, for Joshua was oiling the harnesses.

"He kissed her!" she cried in a state of tremendous excitement.

"Well, she's his aunt, ain't she?" Joshua demanded, picking up the can and privately wishing Lucinda in Halifax.

"I don't mean her;—I mean Janice."

"I don't see anythin' surprisin' in that," said Joshua,—"not if he got a good chance."

"What do you think of such goin's on?"

"I think they'll lead to goin's offs."

"I never would 'a' believed it," said Lucinda; "Well, all I can say is I wish he'd 'a' tried it on me."

"You'll wish a long time," said Joshua, placidly; and his tone, as usual, made Lucinda even more angry than his words; so she forthwith left him and tore back to the house.

Aunt Mary had also had her eyes open, and in this particular case it was impossible to have one's eyes open without having one's eyes opened. So Aunt Mary had both.

She shut them at once and reflected deeply, and when Janice went out of the room at last she immediately sat up in bed and addressed her nephew.

"Jack, what did you kiss her for?"

Jack was fairly wild with joy at the brilliant way in which he had begun. Mrs. Rosscott had laid one scheme for the overthrow of Aunt Mary and her plan of attack had been absolutely successful. Now it was his turn and he, too, was in it to win undying glory or else—well, no matter. There wouldn't be any "also ran" in this contest.

"You don't deny that you kissed her, do you?" said his aunt severely. "Answer this minute. I'm a great believer in answerin' when you're spoken to."

"Yes, I kissed her," he said easily.



"Aunt Mary had also had her eyes open."

"Well, what did you do it for?"

"I'm very fond of her;" the words came forth with great apparent reluctance.

"Fond of her!" said Aunt Mary with great contempt.

Jack lifted his eyes quickly at the tone of her comment.

"Fond of her! Do you think a girl like that is the kind to be fond of! Why ain't you in love with her?"

The young man felt his brains suddenly swimming. This surpassed his maddest hopes.

"Shall I say that I am in love with her?" he cried into the ear-trumpet.

Aunt Mary raised up in bed,—her eyes sparkling.

"Jack," she said, almost quivering with excitement, "are you in love with her?"

"Yes, I am," he owned, wondering what would come next, but feeling that the tide was all his way.

Aunt Mary collapsed with a joyful sigh.

"My heavens alive," she said rapturously, "seems like it's too good to be true! Jack," she continued solemnly, "if you're in love with her you shall marry her. If there's any way to keep a girl like that in the family I guess I ain't goin' to let her slip through my fingers not while I've got a live nephew. You shall marry her an' I'll buy you a house in New York and come an' live with you."

Jack sat silent, but smiling.

"Do you think she will want to marry me?" he asked presently.

"You go and bring her to me," said the old lady vigorously. "I'll soon find out. Just tell her I want to speak to her—don't tell her what about. That ain't none of your business an' I'm a great believer in people's not interfering in what's none of their business. You just get her and then leave her to me."

Jack went and found Janice. He was sufficiently mean not to tell her what had happened, and Janice—being built on a different plan from Lucinda—had not kept near enough to the keyhole to be posted anyway.

"Mr. Denham says you want me," she said, coming to the bedside with her customary pleasant smile.

"I do," said her mistress. "I want to speak to you on a very serious subject and I want you to pay a lot of attention. It's this: I want you to marry Jack."

Poor Janice jumped violently,—there was no doubt as to the genuineness of her surprise.

"Well, don't you want to?" asked Aunt Mary.

"I don't believe I do."

At this it was the old lady's turn to be astonished.

"Why don't you?" she said; "my heavens alive, what are you a-expectin' to marry if you don't think my nephew's good enough for you?"

"But I don't want to marry!" cried poor Janice, in most evident distress.

Aunt Mary looked at her severely.

"Then what did you kiss him for?" she asked, in the tone in which one plays the trump ace.

Janice started again.

"Kiss—him—" she faltered.

Aunt Mary regarded her sternly.

"Granite," she said, "I ain't a-intendin' to be unreasonable, but I must ask you jus' one simple question. You kissed him, for I saw you; an' will you kindly tell me why, in heaven's name, you ain't willin' to marry any man that you're willin' to kiss?"

"There's such a difference," wailed the maid.

"I don't see it," said her mistress, shaking her head. "I don't see it at all. Of course I never for a minute thought of doin' either myself, but if I had thought of doin' either, I'd had sense enough to have seen that I'd have to make up my mind to do both. I'm a great believer in never doin' things by halves. It don't pay. Never—nohow."

Janice was biting her lips.

"But I don't want to marry!" she repeated obstinately.

"Then you shouldn't have let him kiss you. You've got him all started to lovin' you and if he's stopped too quick no one can tell what may happen. I want him to settle down, but I want him to settle down because he's happy an' not because he's shattered. He says he's willin' to marry you an' I don't see any good reason why not."

Janice's mouth continued to look rebellious.

"Go and get him," said Aunt Mary. "I can see that this thing has got to be settled pleasantly right off, or we shan't none of us have any appetite for dinner. You find Jack, or if you can't find him tell Lucinda that she's got to."

Janice went out and found Jack in the hall.

"Is this a trap?" she asked reproachfully.

Jack laughed.

"No," he said "it's a counter-mine."

"Your aunt wants you at once," said Janice, putting her hands into her pockets and looking out of the window.

"I fly to obey," he said obediently, and went at once to his elderly relative.

"Jack," she said, the instant he opened the door, "I've had a little talk with Granite. She don' want to marry you, but she looks to me like she really didn't know her own mind. I've said all I can say an' I'm too tired holdin' the ear-trumpet to say any more. I think the best thing you can do is to take her out for a walk an' explain things thoroughly. It's no good our talkin' to her together; and, anyway, I've always been a great believer in 'Two's company—three's none.' That was really the big reason why I'd never let Lucinda keep a cat. You take her and go to walk and I guess everything'll come out all right. It ought to. My heavens alive!"

Jack took the maid and they went out to walk. When they were beyond earshot the first thing that they did was to laugh long and loud.

"Of all my many and varied adventures!" cried Mrs. Rosscott, and Jack took the opportunity to kiss her again—under no protest this time.

"We shall have to be married very soon, now, you know," he said gayly. "Aunt Mary won't be able to wait."

"Oh, as to that—we'll see," said Mrs. Rosscott, and laughed afresh. "But there is one thing that must be done at once."

"What's that?" Jack asked.

"We must tell Aunt Mary who I am."

"Oh, to be sure," said the young man.

"I hope she won't take it in any way but the right way!" the widow said thoughtfully.

"My dearest, in what other way could she take it? I think she has proved her opinion of you pretty sincerely."

"Yes," said Mrs. Rosscott, with a little smile, "I certainly have cause to feel that she loves me for myself alone."

When they returned to the house they went straightway to Aunt Mary's room, and the first glance through the old lady's eye-glasses told her that her wishes had all been fulfilled. She sat up in bed, took a hand of each into her own, and surveyed them in an access of such utter joy as nearly caused all three to weep together.

"Well, I am so glad," was all she said for the first few seconds, and nobody doubted her words forever after.

Then Mrs. Rosscott removed her hat and jacket, and when she returned to the bedside her future aunt made her sit down close to her and hold one of her hands while Jack held the other.

"I'm so glad you're to have the runnin' of Jack," the old lady declared sincerely. "All I ask of you is to be patient with him. I always was. That is, most always."

"Dear Aunt Mary," said Mrs. Rosscott, slipping down on her knees beside the bed, "you are so good to me that you encourage me to tell you my secret. It isn't long, and it isn't bad, but I have a confession to make."

"Oh, I say," cried Jack, "if you put it that way let me do the owning up!"

"Hush," said his love authoritatively, "it's my confession. Leave it to me."

"What is it?" said Aunt Mary, looking anxiously from one to the other; "you haven't broke your engagement already, I hope."

"No," said Mrs. Rosscott, "it's nothing like that. It's only rather a surprise. But it's a nice surprise,—at least, I hope you'll think that it is."

"Well, hurry and tell me then," said the old lady. "I'm a great believer in bein' told good news as soon as possible. What is it?"

"It's that I'm not a maid," said the pretty widow.

"Not—a—" cried Aunt Mary blankly.

"I'm a widow!" said Janice. "I'm Burnett's sister."

"Wh—a—at!" cried Aunt Mary. "I didn't jus' catch that."

"You see," screamed Jack, "she was afraid to have me entertain you in New York,—afraid you wouldn't be properly looked after, Aunt Mary, so she dressed up for your maid and looked after you herself."

"My heavens alive!"

"Wasn't she an angel?" he asked.

"But whatever made you take such an interest?" Aunt Mary demanded of Janice.

Janice rose from her knees and, leaning over the bed, drew the old lady close in her arms.

"I'll tell you," she screamed gently. "I loved Jack, and so I loved his aunt even before I had ever seen her."

Aunt Mary's joy fairly overflowed at that view of things, and, putting her hands to either side of the lovely face so close to her own, she kissed it warmly again and again.

"I always knew you were suthin' out of the ordinary," she declared vigorously. "You know I wouldn't have let him marry you if I hadn't been pretty sure as you were different from Lucinda an' the common run."

And then she beamed on them both and Jack beamed on them both and Mrs. Rosscott kissed each of them and dried her own happy eyes.

"Now I want to know jus' how an' where you learned to love him?" the aunt asked next.

"I loved him almost directly I knew him," she answered, and at that Aunt Mary seemed on the point of applauding with the ear-trumpet against the headboard.

"It was jus' the same with me," she said delightedly. "He was only a baby then, but the first look I took I jus' had a feelin'—"

"Yes," said Mrs. Rosscott sympathetically, "so did I."

They all laughed together.

"An' now," said Aunt Mary, laying back and folding her arms upon her bosom, "an' now comes the main question,—when do you two want to be married?"

"Oh!" said the widow starting, "we—I—Jack—"

"Well, go on," said Aunt Mary. "Say whenever you like. An' then Jack can do the same."

The two young people exchanged glances.

"Speak right up," said Aunt Mary. "I'm a great believer in not hangin' back when anythin' has got to be decided. Jack, what do you think?"

"I want to get married right off," said Jack decidedly.

"I think he's too young," put in Mrs. Rosscott hastily.

"I don't know," said Aunt Mary, looking at her nephew reflectively. "Seems to me he's big enough, an' I'm a great believer in never dilly-dallyin' over what's got to be done some time. Why not Thanksgiving?"

"Thanksgiving!" shrieked Mrs. Rosscott.

"Yes," said Aunt Mary. "I think it would be a good time, an' then I can come and spend Christmas with you in the city."

"Great idea!" declared her nephew; "me for Thanksgiving."

"What do you say?" said Aunt Mary to the bride-to-be.

"Oh, I don't see—" began the latter, wrinkling her pretty forehead in a prettier perplexity and looking helplessly back and forth between their double eagerness.

"Well, why not?" said the aunt. "It ain't as if there was any reason for waitin'. If there was I'd be the first to be willin' to do all I could to be patient, but as it is—even if you an' Jack ain't in any particular hurry, I am, an' I was brought up to go right to work at gettin' what you want as soon as you know what it is."

"But this is so sudden," wailed Mrs. Rosscott.

Aunt Mary glanced at her sharply.

"That's what they all say, a'cordin' to the papers," she said calmly, "an' it never is counted as anythin' but a joke."

"But I'm not joking," Janice cried.

"Then you jus' take a little time an' think it over," proposed the old lady,—"I'll tell you what you can do. You can get me Lucinda because I want to tell her suthin' and then you and Jack can sit down together an' think it over anywhere an' anyhow you like."

"Do you really want Lucinda," said Janice, rising to her feet, "or is it something that I can do? You know I'm yours just the same as ever, Aunt Mary. Next to being good to Jack, I want to always be good to you."

Aunt Mary looked up with a light in her eyes that was fine to see.

"Bless you, my child," she said heartily. "I know that, but I really want Lucinda, an' you an' Jack can take care of yourselves for a while. Leastways, I hope you can. I guess you can. I presume so, anyway."

It was late that afternoon that Lucinda, looking as if she had been accidentally overtaken by a road-roller, joined Joshua in the potato cellar.

"Well, the sky c'n fall whenever it likes now!" she said, sitting down on an empty barrel with a resigned sigh.

"That's a comfort to know," said Joshua.

"She's got it all made up for 'em to marry each other."

"That ain't no great news to me," said Joshua.

"Joshua Whittlesey, you make my blood boil. Things is goin' rackin' and ruinin' at a great pace here an' you as cold as a cauliflower over it all."

Joshua sorted potatoes phlegmatically and said nothing.

"S'posin' I'd 'a' wanted to marry him?"

Joshua continued to sort potatoes.

"Or, s'posin' you wanted to marry her?"

Joshua looked up quickly.

"Which one?" he said.

"Janice!"

"Oh," he said in a relieved tone.

"Why did you say 'oh,'—did you think I meant her?"

"I didn't know who you meant."

"Why, you wouldn't think o' marryin' her, would you?"

"No," said Joshua emphatically. "I'd as soon think o' marryin' you yourself."

Lucinda deliberated for a minute or so as to whether to accept this insult in silence or not, and finally decided to make just one more remark.

"I wonder if she'll send any word to Arethusa 'n' Mary."

"They'll know soon enough," said Joshua oracularly.

"How'll they know, I'd like to know?"

"You'll write 'em."

Lucinda was dumb. The fact that the letter was already written only made the serpent-tooth of Joshua's intimate knowledge cut the deeper.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - GRAND FINALE

She has it all made up for him to marry her, and she is certainly as happy as she is and he is themselves. She is making plans at a great rate and she has consented to have her wedding here because she wants to be there herself. The day is set for Thanksgiving and the Lord be with us for everything has got to be just so and she is no more good at helping now that he's come. They are all going back to New York as soon as possible after it's over and I hope to be forgiven for stating plainly that it will be the happiest day' of my life.

Respectfully,

L. COOKE.

Upon receipt of this astounding news Arethusa took the train and flew to the scene where such momentous happenings were piling up on one another. Her arrival was unexpected and the changes which she found ensued and ensuing were of a nature bewildering in the extreme. Aunt Mary had quit her regime of soup and sleep and was not only more energetically vigorous as to mind than ever, but strengthening daily as to bodily force. It might have been the excitement, for Burnett was there, Clover was en route, and Mitchell was expected within twenty-four hours. Other great changes were visible everywhere. A corps of servants from town had fairly swamped Lucinda and twenty carpenters were putting up an extra addition to the house in which to give the wedding room to spread. Nor was this all, for Aunt Mary had turned a furniture man and an upholsterer loose with no other limit than that comprised by the two words "carte blanche."

Mrs. Rosscott still continued to wait upon Aunt Mary, but another maid had arrived to await upon Mrs. Rosscott. The latter had shed her black uniform and bloomed forth in rose-hued robes. Mr. Stebbins was kept on tap from dawn to dark and the checks flowed like water. Emissaries had been despatched to New York to buy the young couple a suitable house and furnish that also from top to bottom.

"Well, Arethusa," the aunt said to the niece when they met the morning after her arrival, "I'm feelin' better 'n I was last time you were here."

"I'm so glad," yelled Arethusa.

"They'll live in New York and I'll live with them. As far as I've seen there ain't no other place on earth to live. I'm goin' to get me a coat lined with black-spotted white cat's fur and have my glasses put on a parasol handle, and I'm going to have the collars and sleeves left out of most of my dresses an' look like other people. I'm a great believer in doin' as others do, an' Jack won't ever have no cause to complain that I didn't take easy to city life."

Arethusa felt herself dumb before these revelations.

Later she was conducted to see the wedding presents, which were gorgeous. Among them was the biggest and brightest of crimson automobiles; and Mitchell, who had presented it, had christened it beforehand "The Midnight Sun." Aunt Mary's gift was the New York house and money enough for them to live on the income.

"I know you're able to look out for yourself," she told the bride, "but I don't want Jack to have to worry over things at all, and, although I know it's a good habit, still I shouldn't like to have him ever work so hard that he wouldn't feel like goin' around with us nights. Not ever. Not even sometimes."

Mitchell was overjoyed at the way things had turned out.

"My dear Miss Watkins," he screamed, when he was ushered into Aunt Mary's presence, "who could have guessed in the hour of that sad parting in New York that such a glad future was held in store for us all!"

"I didn't quite catch that," Aunt Mary exclaimed, rapturously, "but it doesn't matter—as long as you got here safe at last."

"Safe!" exclaimed the young man; "it would have been the very refinement of cruelty if my train had smashed me on this journey."

Burnett was equally happy.

"I suppose it will be up to me to give you away," he said to his sister; "before all these people, too. What a mean trick!"

Jack had thought that he would like to have Tweedwell marry him, as that young man had put in the summer vacation getting ordained. Tweedwell accepted—although he had just taken charge of a living in Seattle and came through on a flyer which arrived two hours before the hour. Some fifty or sixty of the guests came in on the same train, and Burnett and Clover met them all at the cars and made the majority comfortable in the different hotels and honored the minority with Aunt Mary's hospitality.

The day was gorgeous. The addition to the house was done and lined with white and decorated in gold. An orchestra was ensconced behind palms just as orchestras always covet to be and a magnificent breakfast had been sent up from the city in its own car with its own service and attendants to serve it.

There was only one hitch in the entire programme. That was that when they got to the church Tweedwell did not show up. Jack was distressed even though Mrs. Rosscott laughed. Mitchell wanted to read the ceremony, but Aunt Mary was afraid it wouldn't be legal, and Mr. Stebbins agreed with her. In the end the regular clergyman married them; and just as they were all filing out they met Tweedwell and Lucinda tearing along, he in his surplice and she in the black silk dress which Aunt Mary had given her in celebration of the occasion. They were both too exhausted to be able to explain for several minutes; but it finally came out (of Lucinda) that Burnett, whose place it was to have overseen officiating Tweedwell, had forgotten all about him, and the poor fellow, exhausted by his long journey, had never awakened until Lucinda, going in to clear up his room, had let forth a piercing howl of surprise.

So far from dampening anyone's spirits this little contretemps only seemed to set things off at a livelier pace. They had a brisk ride home, and the wedding feast and the wedding cake were all that could be desired. What went with it was the finest that any of the guests ever tasted before or since, and the champagne was all but served in beer steins.

When it came to the healths they drank to Aunt Mary along with the bride and groom, and Mitchell made a speech, invoking Heaven's blessings on the triple compact and covering himself with glory.

"Here's to Aunt Mary and her bride and her groom," he cried, when they told him to rise and proclaim. "Here's to Aunt Mary and her bride and groom, and here's to their health and their wealth and their happiness. Here's to their brilliant past, their roseate present and their gorgeous future. And here's to hoping that Fate, who is ready and willing to deal any man a bride, may some time see fit to deal some one of us another such as Jack's Aunt Mary. So I propose her health before all else. Aunt Mary, long may she wave!"

Aunt Mary looked as if words and actions were poor things in which to attempt to express her feelings, but no one who glanced at her could be in two minds as to her state of approval as to everything that was going on.

The bridal pair drove away somewhere after five o'clock, and about seven the main body of the guests returned to the city.

Mrs. Rosscott's mother and Mitchell and Burnett remained a day or two to keep Aunt Mary from feeling blue, but Aunt Mary was not at all inclined that way.

"If those two young people are lookin' forward to anythin' like as much fun as I am," she said over and over again, "well, all is they're lookin' forward to a good deal."

"Won't we whoop her up next summer!" said Burnett; "well, I don't know!"

"My dear Robert," said his mother gently.

"Don't stop him," said Aunt Mary. "He knows just how I feel an' I know jus' how he feels. It isn't wrong, Mrs. Burnett, it's natural. We were born to be happy, only sometimes we don't know just how to set about it."

"Miss Watkins has hit the nail on the head," said Mitchell, rolling a cigarette. "She has not only hit the nail on its own head, but she has succeeded in driving its point well into all our heads. She taught us many things during her short visit. I, for one, am her debtor forever. Me for joy, from now on!"

Aunt Mary smiled. "My heavens!" she murmured; "to think how nice it all come out, and how really put out I was when Jack first began, too."

Burnett put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some gum.

"Robert!" cried his mother, "you don't chew gum, do you?"

"Of course he doesn't," said his friend quickly; "that's why he had it in his pocket."

Aunt Mary looked thoughtfully at him.

"Give me a little," she said, "maybe it's suthin' I've been missin'."

Mrs. Burnett left the next day, and Mitchell went the day after.

The carpenters took down the addition, and the wedding presents were shipped to town.

"She says she'll be goin' soon," said Lucinda to Joshua.

"Then she'll be goin' soon," said Joshua.

"I'm sure I'll be glad," said Lucinda; "such hifalutin sky-larkin'!"

Joshua said nothing. Mr. Stebbins had apprised him of Aunt Mary's arrangements in his behalf and he felt no inclination to criticize any of her doings and sayings.

Toward the end of the next week this telegram was received.

Dear Aunt Mary: We're home and ready when you are. Telegraph what train.

J. and J.

The telegram was handed to Aunt Mary at ten in the morning. Her fingers trembled as she opened it.

"My heavens alive, Lucinda," she cried, the next minute, "I do believe, if you'll be quick, that I can make the twelve-twenty! Run! Tell Joshua to get my trunk down and harness Billy as quick as he can. He can telegraph that I'm comin' after I'm gone."

Lucinda flew Joshua-wards.

"She wants to make the twelve-twenty train!" she cried. Joshua looked up.

"Then she'll make it," he said.

She made it!



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With frontispiece by Alice Barber Stephens

Cloth. $1.50

Exhibits her cleverness and sense of humor.—New York Times.

Crisply told, quaintly humorous.—Boston Transcript.

An "Original Gentleman" is truly also one of the most entertaining and witty gentlemen that it has been our fortune to run across in many a day, not to mention the more original lady that he has to do with.—Louisville Evening Post.

* * * * *

By the same author

A WOMAN'S WILL

Illustrated. 360 pages. Cloth. $1.50

A deliciously funny book.—Chicago Tribune.

It is bright, charming, and intense as it describes the wooing of a young American widow on the European Continent by a German musical genius.—San Francisco Chronicle.

As refreshing a bit of fiction as one often finds.—Providence Journal.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON



Anne Warner's Latest Character Creation

IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY

By ANNE WARNER

Illustrated by J.V. McFall. Cloth. $1.50

A story of love and sacrifice that teems with the author's original humor.—Baltimore American.

The humor peculiar to her pen is here in wonted strength, but in a new guise; and set against it, or interwoven with it, is a story of love and the strange sacrifice of which a few loving hearts are capable.—New York American.

* * * * *

By the same author

YOUR CHILD AND MINE

Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50

The child heart, strange and sweet and tender, lies open to this sympathetic writer, and other human hearts—and eyes—should be opened by her narratives.—Chicago Record-Herald.

The literary charm of the stories is not the least of their attractions. The interest is all the greater for the style in which the story is told, and the author's sympathy with her young friends lends a vital warmth to her narrative.—Philadelphia Public Ledger.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON



By the Author of "Aunt Jane of Kentucky"

THE LAND OF LONG AGO

By ELIZA CALVERT HALL

Illustrated by G. Patrick Nelson and Beulah Strong 12mo. Cloth. $1.50

The book is an inspiration.—Boston Globe.

Without qualification one of the worthiest publications of the year.—Pittsburg Post.

Aunt Jane has become a real personage in American literature.—Hartford Courant.

A philosophy sweet and wholesome flows from the lips of "Aunt Jane."—Chicago Evening Post.

The sweetness and sincerity of Aunt Jane's recollections have the same unfailing charm found in "Cranford."—Philadelphia Press.

To a greater degree than her previous work it touches the heart by its wholesome, quaint human appeal.—Boston Transcript.

The stories are prose idyls; the illuminations of a lovely spirit shine upon them, and their literary quality is as rare as beautiful.—Baltimore Sun.

MARGARET E. SANGSTER says: "It is not often that an author competes with herself, but Eliza Calvert Hall has done so successfully, for her second volume centred about Aunt Jane is more fascinating than her first."

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON

THE END