do not. He is a Republican; I'm a
Progressive. He disapproves of large families; I approve of them, if
people can afford them."

Aggie sat straight up. "I hope you don't discuss that!" she exclaimed.

Bettina smiled. "How nice to find that you are really just nice elderly
ladies after all!" she said. "Of course we discuss it. Is it anything to
be ashamed of?"

"When I was a girl," I said tartly, "we married first and discussed
those things afterward."

"Of course you did, Aunt Lizzie," she said, smiling alluringly. She was
the prettiest girl I think I have ever seen, and that night she was
beautiful. "And you raised enormous families who religiously walked to
church in their bare feet to save their shoes!"

"I did nothing of the sort," I snapped.

"It seems to me," Aggie put in gently, "that you make very little of
love." Aggie was once engaged to be married to a young man named
Wiggins, a roofer by trade, who was killed in the act of inspecting a
tin gutter, on a rainy day. He slipped and fell over, breaking his neck
as a result.

Bettina smiled at Aggie. "Not at all," she said. "The day of blind love
is gone, that's all--gone like the day of the chaperon."

Neither of us cared to pursue this, and Tish at that moment appearing
with Jasper, Aggie and I made a move toward bed. But Jasper not going,
and none of us caring to leave him alone with Bettina, we sat down
again.

We sat until one o'clock.

At the end of that time Jasper rose, and saying something about its
being almost bedtime strolled off next door. Aggie was sound asleep in
her chair and Tish was dozing. As for Bettina, she had said hardly a
word after eleven o'clock.

Aggie and Tish, as I have said, were occupying the same room. I went to
sleep the moment I got into bed, and must have slept three or four hours
when I was awakened by a shot. A moment later a dozen or more shots were
fired in rapid succession and I sat bolt upright in bed. Across the
street some one was raising a window, and a man called "What's the
matter?" twice.

There was no response and no further sound. Shaking in every limb, I
found the light switch and looked at the time. It was four o'clock in
the morning and quite dark.

Some one was moving in the hall outside and whimpering. I opened the
door hurriedly and Aggie half fell into the room.

"Tish is murdered, Lizzie!" she said, and collapsed on the floor in a
heap.

"Nonsense!"

"She's not in her room or in the ho