ustee, I don't think she could accomplish much by
printing in her circulars the details of her past stewardship."

"I don't want her to work up a reputation as a trustee," retorted
Bobby. "She suits me just as she is, and I'm inclined to thank the
governor for having loaded her down with the job."

"I'm becoming reconciled to it myself," admitted Agnes, smiling up at
him. "Really, I have great faith that one day you will learn how to
take care of money--if the money holds out that long. What is the new
venture, Bobby?"

He grinned quite cheerfully.

"I am about to become an angel," he said quite solemnly.

Aunt Constance shook her head.

"No, Bobby," she said kindly; "there _are_ spots, you know, where
angels fear to tread."

But Agnes took the declaration with no levity whatever.

"You don't mean in a theatrical sense?" she inquired.

"_In_ a theatrical sense," he insisted. "I am about to back the
Neapolitan Grand Opera Company."

"Why, Bobby!" objected Agnes, aghast. "You surely don't mean it! I
never thought you would contemplate anything so preposterous as that.
I thought it was to be only a benefit!"

"It's only a temporary arrangement," he reassured her, laughing that
he had been taken so seriously. "I'm arranging so that they can earn
their way out of town; that's all. I am taking you down now to see
their first rehearsal."

"I don't care to go," she declared, in a tone so piqued that Bobby
turned to her in mute astonishment.

Aunt Constance laughed at his look of utter perplexity.

"How little you understand, Bobby," she said. "Don't you see that
Agnes is merely jealous?"

"Indeed not!" Agnes indignantly denied. "That is an idea more absurd
than the fact that Bobby should go into such an enterprise at all.
However, since I lay myself open to such a suspicion I shall offer no
further objection to going."

Bobby looked at her curiously and then he carefully refrained from
chuckling, for Aunt Constance, though joking, had told the truth.
Instant visions of dazzling sopranos, of mezzos and contraltos, of
angelic voices and of vast beauty and exquisite gowning, had flashed
in appalling procession before her mental vision. The idea, in the
face of the appalling actuality, was so rich that Bobby pursued it no
further lest he spoil it, and talked about the weather and equally
inane topics the rest of the way.

It was not until they had turned into the narrow alley at the side of
the Orpheum, and f