ed 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.

"Excus