o Paris and a season in Cannes every year. I admire her fighting
spirit, but it's hopelessly misdirected."

"Am I meant to understand you, Aunt Eliza?"

"No. Don't even listen to me. Nancy has too much sense for a girl of
her age, and that exquisite little Alma has none. Tut-tut. I find
that I must interfere."

CHAPTER VI

MISS BANCROFT BEARDS THE OGRE

Miss Bancroft had not made her solemn declaration lightly. She never
made any announcements of her intentions without weighty consideration;
consequently she was a woman who meant what she said, and meant it
thoroughly. Moreover, she never procrastinated; she thought in a
straight line, and she acted in a straight line.

Like most women, she took a healthy human delight in "interfering";
but, unlike the majority of her sex, she indulged very rarely. When,
however, she had made up her mind on the point of allowing herself to
concern herself in other people's business, she experienced the
exquisite relish of a strictly self-controlled gamester, who allows
himself to play only rarely so that he may enjoy his sport with that
peculiar zest which only long abstinence can whet.

On a sunny, warm September day, mellow with the promise of an Indian
summer, Miss Bancroft, smart, though rotund, in lavender linen, set out
on her pilgrimage to the house of Thomas Prescott.

"I see that you aren't above the traditional wiles of your sex, Aunt,"
commented George Arnold, looking up from his book, and surveying her
with twinkling eyes, from the long wicker porch chair, where he had
been dozing in the sun. "You've rigged yourself out in full panoply.
That's a jaunty little parasol you have."

Miss Bancroft, standing on the broad steps, put up her parasol at this,
to shade the fine texture of her gaily beflowered straw hat from the
sun, and then glanced around at her nephew with a demure smile.

"I make a point of looking my best always when I'm going to see Tom
Prescott. Of course he thinks me a sensible woman, a remarkably
reasonable woman, and all that nonsense; but I like to leave him with
at least a half-formed notion that I'm surprisingly well preserved,
even if I have rather lost my waist-line. There was a time, you
know----" the demure smile quirked the corners of her big, mobile
mouth, and sparkled impishly in her eyes; then with a little wag of her
head, she ran down the steps like a fat, jolly schoolgirl.

George Arnold, leaning back against a chint