said it,"
snapped back my aunt.

"It's your manner," explained my mother; "people sometimes think you
disagreeable."

"They'd be daft if they didn't," interrupted my aunt. "Of course you
don't really mean it," continued my mother.

"Stuff and nonsense," snorted my aunt; "does she think I'm a fool. I
like being disagreeable. I like to see 'em squirming."

My mother laughed.

"I can be agreeable," continued my aunt, "if I choose. Nobody more so."

"Then why not choose?" suggested my mother. "I tried it once," said my
aunt, "and it fell flat. Nothing could have fallen flatter."

"It may not have attracted much attention," replied my mother, with a
smile, "but one should not be agreeable merely to attract attention."

"It wasn't only that," returned my aunt, "it was that it gave no
satisfaction to anybody. It didn't suit me. A disagreeable person is at
their best when they are disagreeable."

"I can hardly agree with you there," answered my mother.

"I could do it again," communed my aunt to herself. There was a
suggestion of vindictiveness in her tones. "It's easy enough. Look at
the sort of fools that are agreeable."

"I'm sure you could be if you tried," urged my mother.

"Let 'em have it," continued my aunt, still to herself; "that's the way
to teach 'em sense. Let 'em have it."

And strange though it may seem, my aunt was right and my mother
altogether wrong. My father was the first to notice the change.

"Nothing the matter with poor old Fan, is there?" he asked. It was one
evening a day or two after my aunt had carried her threat into effect.
"Nothing happened, has there?"

"No," answered my mother, "nothing that I know of."

"Her manner is so strange," explained my father, "so--so weird."

My mother smiled. "Don't say anything to her. She's trying to be
agreeable."

My father laughed and then looked wistful. "I almost wish she wouldn't,"
he remarked; "we were used to it, and she was rather amusing."

But my aunt, being a woman of will, kept her way; and about the same
time that occurred tending to confirm her in her new departure. This
was the introduction into our small circle of James Wellington Gadley.
Properly speaking, it should have been Wellington James, that being the
order in which he had been christened in the year 1815. But in course
of time, and particularly during his school career, it had been borne in
upon him that Wellington is a burdensome name for a commonplace mortal
to be