had removed the front-piece which she wore by day and her face
showed large and rosy between the frills of her night cap. Her china
blue eyes were exceedingly keen and bright. Her mouth as large as her
daughter Harriet's, not puckered at all, but frankly open in an
alarming slit, in her amazement.

"When for goodness sake has the man courted you?" she burst forth at
last.

"I don't know."

"Well, I don't know, if you don't. You haven't been meeting him
outside the house. No, you have not. You are a lady, if you have been
brought up by old maids, who tell lies about spades."

"I did not know until this afternoon," said Annie. "Mr. von Rosen and
I went out to see his rose-garden, while Aunt Harriet--"

Then the old lady shook the bed with mirth.

"I see," said she. "Harriet is scared to death of roses and she went
to sleep in the house and you got your chance. Good for you. I am
thankful the Eustace family won't quite sputter out in old maids."
The old lady continued to chuckle. Annie feared lest her aunts might
hear. Beside the bed stood a table with the collection of things
which was Ann Maria Eustace's nightly requirement. There were a good
many things. First was a shaded reading lamp, then a candle and a
matchbox; there was a plate of thin bread and butter carefully folded
in a napkin. A glass of milk, covered with a glass dish; two bottles
of medicine; two spoons; a saucer of sugared raspberries; exactly one
square inch of American cheese on a tiny plate; a pitcher of water,
carefully covered; a tumbler; a glass of port wine and a bottle of
camphor. Old Ann Maria Eustace took most of her sustenance at night.
Night was really her happy time. When that worn, soft old bulk of
hers was ensconsed among her soft pillows and feather bed and she had
her eatables and drinkables and literature at hand, she was in her
happiest mood and she was none the less happy from the knowledge that
her daughters considered that any well conducted old woman should
have beside her bed, merely a stand with a fair linen cloth, a glass
of water, a candle and the Good Book, and that if she could not go
immediately to sleep, she should lie quietly and say over texts and
hymns to herself. All Ann Maria's spice of life was got from a hidden
antagonism to her daughters and quietly flying in the face of their
prejudices, and she was the sort of old lady who could hardly have
lived at all without spice.

"Your Aunt Harriet will be hopping," s