r a long
time."

"Not to deceive you, I'm thirty-four," he said. "Now, no doubt, you'll
consider me a sort of Ancient Mariner. Perhaps that's all the better."

"Looking at you, I can't, even if it would be better," I had to confess.
"You're so alive--so strong, so--almost violent. I can't somehow imagine
that you've ever been younger, or that you can ever grow older."

Just then, when we'd forgotten the chaperon part of our conversation,
the car slowed down and Vedder made a kind of signal of distress. Mr.
Somerled put his head out through the open window, whereupon I think
Vedder must have reminded him that we were coming into town, wanting to
know what he was to do next. In came Mr. Somerled's smooth black head
again, and he glared at me in a kind of amused desperation. "You must
know some one who would act as your chaperon for a few days, at a good
salary--sent home by train when we'd done with her. That ex-governess or
nurse of yours, you told me about."

"Oh, Heppie wouldn't be found _dead_ leaving Grandma," said I. "Not that
she loves her. Neither does a mouse love a cat, when it won't try to
escape. It keeps running back and being polite with its eyes bulging
out."

"There must be somebody else. Think. Has your grandmother any friends?"

"Dear me, no. She'd scorn it. Only a few acquaintances and a relation or
two, whom she snubs when they come to see her and scolds if they don't.
They wouldn't--but, oh, perhaps Mrs. James _might_. I wonder?"

"Where does Mrs. James live?"

I told him quickly that it was in a little sort of cul-de-sac street
called Flemish Passage, not far from English Street, where Heppie and I
sometimes look at the shops; and I was going on to say more about it and
about Mrs. James, but before I'd time to draw another breath, Mr.
Somerled grabbed up a speaking tube and was talking through it. "Find
Flemish Passage near English Street, and I'll tell you where to stop,"
he addressed the back of Vedder's massive head.

"It's an old curiosity shop, and she keeps it," I hurried to explain,
but that didn't seem to matter to Mr. Somerled.

"I hope you like the lady's society," was all he said.

"I love her, and she's an angel, but a very peculiar angel; and Grandma
doesn't call her a lady, so perhaps you won't," I broke the news to him.

"I daresay your grandmother wouldn't have called my mother a lady," he
replied coolly. "She was an angel, and the cleverest, most gracious
woman I ever k