d.

"It's the knowing you were coming that's done that, Aunt Mary. You ought
to have seen me when I got your telegram. I almost turned a somersault."

Aunt Mary smiled rapturously and patted his hand.

And just then they drew up in front of the house. She looked out, and her
face fell a trifle.

"It's awful high and narrow," she said.

"They all are," Jack replied, opening the carriage door and jumping out to
receive her.

The door at the top of the steps opened, and a man came down for the bags.
In the hall above, a pretty maid waited with a welcoming smile.

Jack piloted his aunt, first up the entrance steps, and then up the
staircase within, and led her to the lovely room which had been vacated
for her. The maid followed with tea and biscuits, and the man brought the
luggage and ranged it unobtrusively in a corner. There was a lavish
richness about everything which made Aunt Mary and her trunk appear as
gray and insignificant as a pair of mice, by contrast; but she didn't feel
it, and so she didn't mind it.

Jack kissed her tenderly.

"Welcome to town, Aunt Mary," he said heartily, "and may you never live to
look upon this day as other than the luckiest of your life!" Then, turning
to the servant, he said:

"Janice, you see that you do all that money can buy for my aunt."

The maid courtesied. She had arranged the tray upon a little table and the
spout of the tea pot and the round hole in the middle of the toast-cover
were each pouring forth a pleasant suggestion.

Aunt Mary began at once to haul forth her keys.

"Why, Aunt Mary," Jack cried, wondering if her nose was deaf, too, or
whether she didn't feel hungry, "don't you see your tea? Or don't you want
any?"

Aunt Mary thumbed her trunk key.

"I want a nightgown," she said; "maybe I'll want something else later.
Maybe."

"You're not going to _bed_!"

She drew herself up.

"I guess I can if I want to; I guess I can. There's the bed and here's
me."

"Whatever are you saying? It isn't half-past six o'clock."

"I'm not _prayin_' about anything," said the old lady. "I don't pray about
things. I do 'em when needful. And when I'm tired I go to bed."

"All right, Aunt Mary," with sugary sweetness and lamb-like
submissiveness. "I thought we'd dine out together, but if you don't want
to, we needn't. And if you feel like it when you waken, we can."

"Dine out," said Aunt Mary, blankly; "has the cook left? I never was a
great approver of goin' and